


Still Truckin'

by fringeperson



Category: Firefly, X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Crow gets punched in the face, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Last of their kind, Rogue is OP, adopted family, just quietly maing their way through the 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson
Summary: Even so many years after the standard 'truck' is long gone, theirs included, the expression still fits the odd couple. The last of their kind, when at one point they were thought to be the next stage. Now they're on a ship and have found a girl who the government tried to artificially make like an old friend.~Originally posted in '15
Relationships: Logan/Rogue (X-Men)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

“You're comin' with us,” a cheerful voice declared.

“Excuse me?” another voice asked.

Logan looked down from the ship he'd been running a very professional eye over to the owner of that first, cheerful voice, and simply raised an eyebrow at the girl he found there, with her worn but still-shining Chinese style jacket, and her hair up in a pair of messy buns that almost made it look like she had mouse ears there, or something.

“You like ships. You don't seem to be lookin' at the destinations, what you're interested in are the ships,” the girl persisted, a smile on her face. “An' mine's the nicest,” she declared proudly.

Logan smirked at the girl. Even with the barbecued dog stand not ten feet away, he could smell the engine oil under this girl's fingernails. Oh yes, that was a mechanic, proud of the ship she lived in and constantly was working on.

“Don't look like much,” commented the second voice Logan had heard. An old-looking man, well, maybe not too old. His hair was grey but there weren't too many wrinkles on his face.

Not like Logan was in any place to make comment on that sort of thing.

“Oh, she'll fool ya,” the girl declared. “You ever sailed in a firefly?”

“Long before you were crawling,” the old-looking man said plainly.

Logan snorted to himself at that. He was getting into ships like this before the old man was a twinkle in his mother's eye, all while looking young enough that he could be calling this guy 'dad'.

“Not an aught-three though,” the old-looking man continued. “Didn't have the extenders, tended to shake.”

The girl pushed herself out of her fold-out chair, colourful if tattered paper parasol lowered to one side, and stepped up to the old man.

“So, uh, how come you don't care where you're goin'?” the girl asked, apparently innocently curious.

It was more than that though, and Logan privately congratulated the girl. He could smell the careful suspicion on her as clearly as the engine oil.

“Because how you get there is the worthier part,” the man answered.

“Are you a missionary?” she asked, still smiling, and this time it was shy curiosity that masked her careful probing, rather than just innocence.

“I guess,” he said, and set down the bag he was carrying in one hand, then released his hold on the handle of the rest of his luggage that he'd been towing along with the other. “I'm a Shepherd, from the Southdown Abbey. Book,” the man said, and held out a hand for the girl. “I'm called Book.”

The girl accepted his hand to shake.

“Been out of the world for a while, like to walk it for a spell,” Shepherd Book continued. “Maybe bring the Word to them as need it told.”

“Well, I'm Kaylee,” the girl said once they'd finished shaking hands. “This here's _Serenity_ ,” she continued with a gesture to the ship behind her. “An' she's the smoothest ride from here to Boros for them as can pay,” the girl finished.

And then seemed to realise that this particular and no doubt important detail was one that hadn't been broached between herself and the man she'd been pitching to.

“Can you?” she asked, suddenly nervous, and a hand reached up to fiddle with a loose bit of her hair at the back of her neck. “Pay?”

“Well, I've got a little cash,” the Shepherd agreed as he moved to his luggage. He picked up a small box and turned back to Kaylee. “And, uh...” he offered, and opened the box for her inspection.

The scent of fresh strawberries wafted out and tantalised Logan's ol' factory senses.

“I'll give you a hundred platinum for the contents of that little box,” Logan offered, stepping up.

Both Shepherd Book and Kaylee blinked at the sudden intrusion to their conversation.

Logan smirked. “And I'd like to buy passage too,” he added to Kaylee. “Heard your pitch, and I'm sold.”

“If you don't mind me asking,” Shepherd Book offered hesitantly, “but... a _hundred_ platinum for this little box of strawberries?”

Logan chuckled. “I don't look the type to go for 'em, I know,” he conceded with a smirk. “But my girl and me, we have good memories of that little fruit, and it's been a  _long_ time.”

Shepherd Book chuckled. “Well, I suppose if I sell you the strawberries for a hundred platinum, I'll definitely be able to afford passage, won't I?” he asked, turning to Kaylee with a smile.

“Definitely,” the girl agreed, though she kept her eyes on the box of strawberries, a longing look in her eyes.

Logan approved. This girl wasn't any rail-thin waif. She was a proper, hard-working sort of girl, and one who clearly liked her food. “Go on an' have one girl,” he said. “I'll still pay the hundred for the rest,” he told Book, and pulled out his wallet on the spot.

“Don't mind if I do!” Kaylee chirped as she watched the money be passed from one man to the other. A look of utter bliss crossed the girl's features as she bit into the strawberry she'd chosen.

Both men chuckled fondly at the sight. It really didn't take much for the cheerful young lady to grow on a person.

“When's your departure time?” Logan asked once he'd seen her throat constrict with the act of swallowing.

“Two-and-a-half hours,” Kaylee answered. “Mr...?”

Logan shook his head. “I'm no mister,” he corrected the girl. “I'm Logan, an' I gotta grab a couple of things from the room I'm stayin' in before take off, not least of which is my girl, so if you'll both excuse me?” he requested, as politely as he ever got, and nodded to them as he excused himself, the box of strawberries in his left hand while the right hung from a pocket by his thumb.

~oOo~

“Marie,” Logan called gently, a smile on his lips as he brushed his nose lightly through the red-brown locks that spread out across the pillow. “Time to wake up, sweetheart.”

“Mm,” was the moaned response, and a body full of tight muscles accentuated by (to Logan's mind) perfect curves stretched languorously their cheap motel room. They'd made use of the wide bed of the cheap room earlier in the day, but the woman had rolled herself into the boxed-in bed that they had custom-built for their own use a long time ago. “You found us a ship?” the woman asked as she blinked open green eyes.

Logan smirked back. “I did,” he confirmed.

“So you woke me up to tell me what?” she asked with a raised brow. “Coulda just as easily put the lid on and I'da popped out once we were on board.”

Logan shook his head. “I gotcha these,” he told her with a smile, and slipped the box of strawberries into her hands.

Rogue's eyes went wide when she peeked into the little box, and then abruptly shifted up to meet Logan's own merrily dancing eyes. A bright, beaming smile crawled its way up Rogue's face, and tears started to gather in her eyes.

“I can't remember the last time we had real strawberries,” she whispered.

Logan shook his head gently. “Don't try,” he advised. “Just relish that we've got 'em now.”

Rogue nodded in acceptance of this. It was old advice between them. If Logan wasn't the one giving it, then Rogue was.

Occasionally one or other of them would get caught up in memories. Sometimes those memories were of the years around the time when they'd first met, sometimes it would be any of the other hundreds of years in between. Years that had seen the theories of Charles Xavier proven false, years that had seen the fears of Magneto come to fruition, years that had seen the race of man _forget_ about the mutants they had so effectively exterminated.

All but two.

Two that couldn't be killed.

Some would have argued that Sabertooth, Victor Creed, would have been a third who would survive. A third who couldn't be killed. But he could be. Some would have argued that Deadpool, Wade Wilson, would have been a fourth who would have survived, what with all the government expenses that went into making sure he'd survive anything. Not even _they_ could survived having their entire heads blown off. Especially when they'd just been shot full of the weaponised 'cure'.

Only Logan, with his adamantium skeleton, and Rogue with more mutations collected under her skin than she rightly knew what to do with, had managed to survive.

And they'd done it by faking their deaths.

Logan _had_ been shot full of the weaponised 'cure' for the X-gene, and he _had_ then been riddled with artillery fire. But his mutation over-rode the 'cure'. His body recognised it as a toxin, and his mutation had summarily destroyed it. Just like it did every other toxin. He'd been down for a while, bleeding all over the ground, there was no denying that, but as the soldiers had marched away – satisfied he was dead – he'd been slowly healing right back up.

Because of his adamantium skeleton, they couldn't blow his head off like they'd done to Victor and Wade. As long as he was somewhat whole, Logan could and would always rise again.

Marie, lacking the adamantium skeleton, but also – so far as the government knew – not in possession of the same healing mutation as Logan, had suffered only a shot from a sniper to her heart while she'd been in the middle of fixing breakfast.

The government didn't know everything.

Rogue had been in possession of the same healing mutation as both Victor _and_ Logan since the now long-forgotten Liberty Island Incident. Well, long-forgotten to all but the two of them. Logan and Rogue were the only ones still alive who even knew it had happened. The Liberty Island Incident had been summarily wiped from the annals of history by a man called Fury who'd owed Logan a big fat favour. He was dead now too.

A serum to keep someone from ageing, to keep them in their prime... humans weren't meant for immortality. Give the average man two and a half hundred years, he'll be more than likely willing to put a bullet through his own skull just out of sheer boredom, even if the human race _does_ mean that there are amazing new advancements every other month. Nick Fury had lasted exactly two hundred and fifty three years, eight months, ten days, and five minutes before he just got sick of it all.

Rogue and Logan, they didn't have that option. So they stuck together, and they made the best of it, even when the 'cure' for the X-gene had started becoming part of the standard inoculations for infants – a baby had been born purple with pink eyes and pointed ears, to a senator. He'd pushed through a bill to make that inoculation perinatal at the latest.

“Ship's leaving in about two hours,” Logan said softly.

Marie nodded and hauled herself off the bed. “We packed?” she checked.

“We ever _un_ pack?” Logan countered, though he was also genuinely asking. Hotels blurred together within the space of a normal lifetime. They'd both lived through enough that the wars blurred together.

Rogue cocked her head as she thought about it. “Toothbrushes,” she answered.

“Right,” Logan agreed, and went to fetch their bathroom stuff.

~oOo~

Logan returned to _Serenity_ with a duffle over one shoulder and pulling a long box on a hand-cart behind him.

“Is... is that a _coffin_?” an unfamiliar voice demanded as Logan pulled it up the ramp.

“It surely looks like it Cap,” agreed the slightly more familiar voice of Kaylee. “Though a bit wider than most.”

Logan paused and looked over.

“Mal, this is Logan,” Kaylee presented, now a trifle nervous. “Logan, this is our captain.”

Logan nodded. “Pleased to meetcha,” he said neutrally.

The captain, Mal, returned the nod. “Pleasure,” he agreed. “Why are ya bringin' a coffin on my boat?”

Logan smirked a tiny bit. “It's got sound-proof lining,” he answered plainly.

Mal blinked at that. “Not a coffin then...” he surmised.

Logan chuckled. “Got that right, Bub,” he agreed, and continued into the cargo bay as an ATV with a loaded trailer rolled its way up the ramp.

“Please be careful with that!” a very cultured voice called after it.

“This all you could get us?” Mal asked.

“ _Shi_ ,” Kaylee answered, though she was looking curiously at the box Logan had brought. She remembered he'd said something about fetching his girl, after all.

“Then I'm closin' it up,” the captain declared. “I saw the ambassador dock just as we were comin' back.”

Logan dropped his duffle to the ground and watched the air-lock doors close with one eye as he let the other take in his fellow passengers. The Shepherd, of course, some kid who looked soft and smelled of lilies and disinfectant, and a mousy man who had dropped his bags everywhere and then proceeded to trip over them. Once the airlock doors were shut, Logan popped the lid on the long box he'd brought on board.

Marie calmly sat up, swung her legs over one side, and hopped out of the box onto the floor of the cargo bay before she shook her hair out.

“Woah! What the hell?!” Mal exclaimed, drawing everyone's attention.

“Don't you worry none,” Marie advised as she picked up the duffle and dumped it into the box she'd just climbed out of. “We can pay -”

“Have paid,” Logan corrected.

“- for my passage too,” Marie finished with a conceding nod to her man.

“I want to know why you came aboard in a box, lady!” Mal requested, tense.

“I came aboard in a box because some poser thought he'd shot me in a mortal-type way,” Rogue explained.

“And frankly it's easier to leave a town where someone thinks they've killed ya in a box than it is to just walk out,” Logan added. “It's happened enough times that the deception is part of our standard fare.”

“You not bein' dead gonna bring any trouble to me an' mine?” Mal demanded quickly.

Rogue shook her head. “Naw. The poser shot me 'cause I told his buddy I wouldn't put out,” she said with a sneer. “Lot a witnesses though, so I been keepin' out a sight. It's just easier, bein' dead until people forget you should be. Causes less panic.”

Mal nodded slowly. “Right...” he allowed, though he wasn't sure he believed it. “Well, lady and gents, let me show y'all where the passenger dorms are, the dining area, an' then there's some words need to be said.”

There were accepting nods all round, and they left their baggage in the cargo bay for now.

~oOo~

“As you can see, this here is the dining area,” Mal presented as he leant against one of the cheerfully painted walls – probably the mechanic's doing, that flower stencil that went around the room. “You're all welcome to help yourselves to whatever we've got at any time, and what we've got is fairly standard fare,” he explained. “Protein in all the colours of the rainbow.”

“I hate that shit,” Logan grumbled.

“Hush, Mutton-chops,” Marie whispered back with a slight smile. Not that she liked it any better, mind. Still, manners and such. Most people these days didn't _get_ real food. Everything these days was dehydrated, freeze-dried, powdered, or that gummy protein stuff. All of which was, generally speaking, about as flavoursome as a sheet of cardboard.

“We do have sit-down meals, next one bein' at about eighteen-hundred,” Mal continued.

“And Shepherd Book has offered to help me cook it,” Kaylee added with a smile and a gesture to the man.

Shepherd Book smiled back at her.

“You got more than just those rubies I bought off you earlier?” Logan asked the man hopefully.

“Rubies?” asked a dark-skinned woman, confused.

Marie smiled. “Strawberries,” she explained. “And they were delicious,” she added, directing her smile to the Shepherd. “I don't know where you got 'em, but thank ya kindly for partin' with 'em.”

“I had a garden at the Southdown Abbey,” Book answered with a smile. “Brought as much as I could, but it won't keep.”

“Thank Christ for the generosity of his servants,” Logan near groaned with relief.

Which caused Marie to giggle at him. “An' their green thumbs,” she added, and gave another grateful nod of her own to the grey-haired man.

“Mighty grateful all round I think,” Mal agreed after a moment – a moment which included a brief Look in Kaylee's direction. Still, his taste-buds desire for real food won out over his personal distaste for anything resembling religiosity or piety.

Besides which, they'd already hit the Black, and the man was paying for his passage.

“But back to what I was sayin'. You're all welcome in the dining area at any time, but other'n that, I'm gonna have to ask you to stay in the passenger dorms while we're flyin'. The bridge, the engine room, the cargo bay,” he listed shortly. “They're all off-limits without an escort.”

“Some of my personal effects are in the cargo bay,” said the boy with spotless white shirt and the silk vest.

“I figure you all got luggage you're gonna need to get into,” Mal agreed neutrally. “Soon as we're done here we'll be happy to fetch 'em with you,” he offered as he pushed himself off the wall he'd been leaning against. “Now I have to tell you all one other thing and I apologise in advance for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, we've been ordered by the Alliance to drop some medical supplies off on Whitefall.”

“We got on 'cause of the ship, Bub,” Logan said with an easy shake of his head. “Not the destination.”

“It ain't no inconvenience Hun,” Marie assured with a smile. “Me an' Logan, we can always find some work to do wherever we end up,” she said. “Even if it's Whitefall,” she added with a despairingly amused shake of her head as her smile bent a little ruefully.

“What's wrong with Whitefall?” asked the mousy man who'd been tripping over his own gear earlier.

“Nothin' wrong with it as such,” Mal assured the boy. “It's a bit backwater an' isolated is all. It's the fourth moon on Athens, a little out of our way, but we should have you on Boros no more than a day off schedule.”

“May I ask, what medical supplies?” enquired the richly dressed boy.

“You can,” Mal allowed, his tone flat. “But I didn't when I was told to take 'em, so you won't get an answer from me.”

“It's probably not enough, whatever it is,” the dark-skinned woman joined in, also pushing herself off the wall she'd been leaning against. “An' likely only plasma an' insulin, which _are_ things they ain't got enough of on the border moons, even if they ain't always what's needed most.”

“Alliance says 'jump',” Mal added with a displeased expression.

“You mean, when the Alliance says 'suck it',” Logan corrected.

Mal snorted in amusement as he nodded.

“All right,” the boy said softly.

“Zoe, you wanna take 'em to the cargo bay?” Mal requested of the dark-skinned woman.

So, that was her name.

“Yes Sir,” she answered, and gestured for the passengers to follow her.

“Anything you want, just ask,” Mal said as they slowly filed out. “We're uh, we're here to serve.”

Rogue and Logan bit down on smiles as they held back, so that they were the last ones to head down. Well, just about. Kaylee brought up the rear with them. They were fairly sure no one on this ship was about to shoot or stab them in the back, all the same, a few centuries of not giving their backs to people when they could help it... and letting go of that habit  _ would _ likely see them being stabbed or shot a lot faster, so it was better to keep it up. Earlier that day had actually been on purpose, so it didn't count. And even if it didn't really kill them, it was still a real and literal pain to have to deal with those sorts of 'accidents'.


	2. Chapter 2

_ <You hear that little aside between the captain and the first mate earlier?> _ Logan mentally asked Rogue as they moved the box she'd come aboard in to the passenger dorm they'd been given.

_< Stolen cargo, anybody gets nosy, shoot 'em politely,>_ Rogue confirmed.

Neither of them had initially been psychics, and Logan still wasn't, but Rogue had come into contact with a few psychics before the 'cure' had been made part of the standard baby-shots. When the 'cure' had first been brought to the attention of the public, Marie had wanted to get it – not to try and save her relationship with Bobby, that had been more or less over after he'd convinced  _her_ to do the flying after he'd decided they needed to move the Blackbird when John had left.

She'd wanted to be able to touch people without having to worry about them ending up inside her head. She'd wanted to be able to stop being scared of everybody around her, and of having everybody around her be scared of her because of her mutation.

She could still remember the day she'd burst into the office and asked if it was true, if they could be cured.

“No,” Storm had said. “They can't cure us. They can't cure us because we're not sick.”

Logan had quietly motioned for Storm to calm down and back off, and he'd wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her out of the office. Out of the building even. They'd sat down on the front stairs of the school and Logan had just held her for a while.

“Don't get it,” he'd requested.

“Why?” Marie had pressed. “I can't _touch_ people, Logan! Do you know what it's like to be afraid of your powers? To not be able to get close to people?”

“I do,” Logan agreed, pain in his voice. He closed his eyes, steeling himself for what he was going to say next. “Marie, you know you're stuck with my mutation since the Liberty Island incident -” Logan started.

“An' every other power from every other mutant I've had contact with,” Rogue cut in unhappily. “I got Magneto, Sabertooth, Mistique, Bobby, John, Storm -”

“Shh baby,” Logan hushed. “I get it. But you know, the only reason I left you at all was because you had _mine_. Uncharted regenerative capabilities, that's what Jean said about me back when we first got here. That protects you from all sorts of things, and this place was the best place for you to be where you could finish your education and not get too hurt here,” he slipped one hand down over her shoulder to rest on her heart.

“What are you sayin' Logan?” Marie asked, eyes wide as she looked up at him searchingly.

Logan had smiled a little bashfully – and he never did do bashful – and tugged her closer. “Put that pretty little nose of yours against my mutton-chops, breathe deep in, and say the first word that pops into your mind to describe what you're smelling, with  _my_ sense of smell baby girl,” he'd requested.

Confused, but willing to do as he said, Marie had taken a deep breath in of Logan's scent.

Without even thinking, the word she breathed out was “Mine.”

“That's right,” Logan agreed as he'd wrapped both arms around her properly and pulled her sort-of onto his lap. “That's why I kicked you out of my truck, denying that. That's why I stopped and let you back in, because even if I was going to deny it, then I was going to damn well enjoy it while I could. The Professor distracted me for a bit, dangling the possibility of learning more about who I _was_ in front of me, but you're my future. I've known that since we met.”

Rogue frowned. “Then why all the flirtin' with Dr Grey?”

Logan scoffed. “Habit,” he admitted. “Any woman smells of that much arousal around me, they're gonna get flirted with. Working on curbing that habit though,” he whispered in her ear, his cheek pressed against her hair and lips a mere breath away from the dangerous touch of her skin. “After all, my mutation will protect you from ever getting old, protect you from ever dying. I can't apologise enough to you for that Marie,” he'd told her. “Not least because I'll only half mean it, because it means you're never gonna leave me like everyone else would.”

“Logan...”

Marie hadn't gone for the cure. She'd stayed at the mansion, she'd worked with all the other kids on the X-Men team, she'd collected their mutations – turning her entire body to steel, being able to move through solid objects, creating fireworks out of nothing, and so many more – and she'd made herself stronger.

Then Jean had come back from the dead.

Only she wasn't Jean any more.

She'd joined up with Magneto and they'd launched an assault on the factory where the 'cure' was produced, and they were killing people.

The X-Men may not all have liked the idea of a 'cure', and sure as heck none of them liked the idea of a  _weaponised_ 'cure', but they also couldn't stand aside and let mutants kill people. So they'd made a stand. Rogue had collected the powers of every mutant on that island, one by one until she'd found the multiplying man – then she'd collected them en mass. That had been a lot of powers, and a good number of them were damn useless most of the time.

The important part of that fight was when they'd killed Jean again.

Logan, with his unchartered regenerative capabilities and adamantium skeleton, had drawn Jean's, no,  _Phoenix's_ attention as he fought through the storm of her powers to reach her, his claws bared.

Rogue had used Kitty's mutation to reach the woman from underground, and before Logan had even reached the body of the woman who had once been Jean Grey, Rogue's hand had shot out, bare, and found some of the woman's skin. She'd drained her to death. It was a  _lot_ of power for her to have taken on, and it had made a more of her hair white, while deepening the red tint to the rest, but nearly all of those powers had come in useful. Even most of the ones she'd thought were damn useless.

After everything, after the purges, and the witch-hunts, helping every mutant they met (and Rogue collecting their mutation with a quick hand-shake, either in greeting or farewell) and faking their deaths... Well, Rogue was the only telepath left, and the most powerful single person in the whole world.

Logan kept her grounded and sane.

There had been times when they were unearthing the nightmarish memories of his forgotten past, and there had been times when Rogue had been feeling overwhelmed and very crowded inside her own skull with all the lifetimes worth of memories she'd absorbed. In those times, they had kept  _each other_ grounded and sane. Over the years, she and Logan had gotten into the habit of having short little covert conversations silently. It had actually saved their bacon a few times. Well, okay, they couldn't die, but it had saved them from having to move on in too much of a hurry, so, in fact, literally bacon, as having to move on in a hurry would have ruined their breakfast on more than one occasion.

_< You hear what the pilot and the captain said when we were leaving the dining area?>_ Rogue countered.

_< Didn't she shoot you one time? Everyone's makin' a fuss,>_ Logan repeated with a smirk on his face.  _< Think riding on a smuggling ship will be interesting.>_

_< Think I like these folks,>_ Marie countered, a smirk of her own on her face.  _< But yeah, interesting is probably the word for it.>_

Logan nodded his agreement as his brows drew together slightly.  _< You got a feel for them, or are we letting ourselves be surprised?>_

Rogue raised an eyebrow at him, and didn't answer.

_< Right, reading minds without permission is bad manners,>_ Logan said, answering his own question and shaking his head at himself.

“That's right Sugar,” Rogue agreed quietly once they'd set their luggage down in their room. She quickly kissed his cheek, just above the mutton-chops, and sighed in contentment as her arms and his both found their places around the waist of the other.

Logan had long-since gotten used to the small jolt that came when her skin touched his. They'd figured out ways around it, figured out what precautions they needed to take, even figured out small cheats, things that let them get away with touching.

Hair was a sufficient barrier. Over the centuries they'd managed to get it up to three seconds of contact before Rogue's skin kicked in – time enough for a passionate kiss, or similar, before the contact started to become painful for Logan. He also had a high pain-tolerance, so he was willing to risk a little longer in the name of helping Rogue  _achieve_ longer. And there were a couple of places that didn't have skin to worry about.

They just had to be careful, aware, and occasionally a little kinky.

They left the passenger dorms and returned to the cargo bay, to just people-watch for a while, and Logan stopped a few steps into the bay, his nostrils flaring.

A step behind him, Rogue paused and mimicked the action, breathing deeply.

_< Well, a whore on board,>_ Logan noted.  _< And high-class from the smell of all the perfume.>_

_< You'd better not be getting any ideas,>_ Rogue warned, though there was a smile on her face.

Logan snorted and wrapped an arm around her waist as he grinned back. “Just makin' an observation. Besides, any closer to all that perfume, I'm liable to break out into a fit of sneezing,” he answered to her teasing, his voice a low hum. “Got all I want right here.”

Rogue laughed softly. “You mean, 'except for a good motorbike',” she corrected with a smirk. “I miss 'em too,” she added softly as she snuggled into his embrace. “Why didn't we bring 'em with us when we left Earth?”

“Couldn't afford the cost to bring 'em,” Logan reminded her simply. “An' we had no way of knowin' if gas would still be used for fuel.”

Rogue snorted softly. “And it is,” she pointed out. There were so many planets now that were mined for fuel, all different sorts, but there was available the stuff that their old bikes would run on, and they'd stored them really carefully before they'd left Earth. They'd probably still be in good condition, if they could just get back to Earth to get them. Unfortunately, that was  _extremely_ unlikely. Well, without shelling out a  _lot_ of money. “Maybe we could get new ones?”

Logan smiled. “We did,” he reminded her. “Two hundred years ago. They broke down after a few million miles and by then there weren't any parts to fix them any more. Sold them to an antiques dealer.”

Rogue nodded. “I remember. But I think we're due new ones again, or maybe we can just build 'em from scratch?” she suggested, and sent a mental picture of her using Magneto's powers(well, her powers now, but it was easier most days to categorise her powers by who she'd gotten them from, or mostly gotten them from, when more than one mutant had the same or extremely similar powers) to build a pair of classic Harleys for them, though of course they'd have to be modified – to deal with the extra weight that came with the adamantium that covered their claws, spines and skulls.

Once the purges were over, and shortly after they'd gone through med school the first time, Rogue had taken advantage of Magneto's powers to get a lot of the extra weight off Logan's frame, and had added some of what she'd removed to her own.

Covering two spines, two skulls and two sets of claws (Rogue had gotten Logan's claws along with his regenerative capabilities) took less metal than one _whole_ skeleton though. For all that the metal was indestructible, Magneto's power was able to make it malleable even after it had cooled. It was easier if it was hot, but still possible when cold – and it had been a painful procedure for both of them, but once it was over, they'd both felt pretty good. The extra metal, Rogue had turned into simple jewellery – a matching set of dogtags for herself and Logan – and a couple of swords, which they sparred with fairly regularly, for fitness purposes mostly, but sometimes when they were having a fight, and yes, they did still fight about things occasionally.

“Sounds like a plan,” Logan agreed with a soft smile. “But I want to help, and do more than just the paint-job,” he added with a firm, if teasing, tone.

Rogue nodded in pleased agreement.

~oOo~

“It all looks so good...”

“Thank you for sharing it with us.”

“... I'm gonna make a plate for Wash.”

“Oh, it won't last,” Book said in answer to the previously expressed gratitude, even as he passed the tomatoes. “And they're never the same when they're frozen. The important thing is the spices. A man can live on packaged food from here 'til judgement day if he's got enough rosemary.”

“Oregano,” Rogue stated in seriousness. “Y'also need cumin an' paprika.”

“Coriander,” Logan joined in with a smirk.

“That too,” Rogue agreed with an assenting nod. “Cloves if ya can get 'em...”

“Can't go wrong with salt,” Logan added.

“When did this turn into chefs-are-us?” demanded Jayne, a rather beefy man they'd been introduced to only when they sat down at the table for the meal.

Logan smirked and sat back as Rogue planted an elbow on the table and leant forward, resting her chin on the heel of her palm.

“An' if I told you I know how to make damn good beer from scratch?” Rogue asked with a coy smile.

“Kaylee-girl already makes some fine moonshine in the engine-room,” Jayne countered with a proud smile at the girl.

Rogue and Logan both turned their heads to the girl in question.

“Yeah?” Logan asked curiously.

Kaylee blushed and ducked her head, but nodded shyly.

“Captain, would you mind if I said grace?” Shepherd Book asked up the length of the table.

“Only if you say it out loud,” was Mal's quick response as he picked up a fork.

That pronouncement created a bit of a lull around the table, as the only ones not to follow Book's lead in saying prayer over the meal were Mal, Marie, and Logan. Zoe had taken a plate to the pilot on the bridge just as they were getting into the herb discussion, and wasn't back yet.

When the rest – Book, Jayne, Kaylee, Simon, and Dobson – all finished their silent prayers and reached for their cutlery, Marie picked up the conversation where it had dropped off, rather than letting the silence stretch and become awkward.

“So Kaylee,” she said with a friendly smile. “What sort of still do you use to make your moonshine? Column? Pot? Reflux?”

“Column,” Kaylee answered with a shy smile.

Rogue and Logan both nodded.

“It's a good system,” Rogue agreed. “I tend to go with pot stills, just because a small one of those is a lot more portable, but I guess you're kinda set, if you've got a whole engine-room to do your cookin' in.”

“Well, not the _whole_ engine-room,” Kaylee deferred, her smile brightening. “ _Serenity_ 's engine kinda takes priority in the space.”

“That's fair enough,” Logan agreed with a chuckle.

“So, does it happen a lot?” Simon asked. “The government commandeering your ship? Telling you where to go?”

“That's what a government is for,” Mal answered the boy. “Getting in a man's way.”

“Well it's good,” Dobson interjected, rushing to the defence of said government. “If the supplies are needed.”

“We're just happy to be doin' good works,” Jayne agreed as he chewed in one cheek.

“I hear a lot of the border moons are in bad shape,” Dobson continued as Zoe returned to the table and started to pile up a plate for herself. “Plagues, and famine...” he trailed off.

“You here that, do you?” Logan asked, his tone a little dark. “Ever thought to do anything about these things you hear?”

“I'm just saying -” Dobson defended himself, wide-eyed in the face of the somewhat accusing look he was getting from the man who somehow managed to look both clean _and_ wild at the same time.

“Some of it's exaggerated,” Zoe allowed, cutting in before the conversation had a chance to become violent. “And some of it ain't,” she continued. “All those moons, just like the central planets, they're as close to Earth-That-Was as we could make 'em,” she explained. “Gravity, atmosphere and such, but...”

Mal picked up where his first mate trailed off. “Once they're terraformed,  they'll dump settlers on there with nothing but blankets, hatchets, maybe a herd,” he explained. “Some of them make it,” he allowed. “Some of them.”

“And only for a given quantity of 'make it',” Rogue added bitterly. “This conversation is putting me off my meal, which is a real shame, 'cause so far it's been great. Can we talk about somethin' else please?” she requested.

“Well, we've talked about booze an' drugs, must mean we're talkin' about sex next,” Logan suggested with a smirk.

“Absolutely not!” Mal answered sharply, eyes wide and cheeks suddenly very pink.

Rogue bit down on a giggle. “Looks like the captain don't much care for discussin' that stuff Sweet-chops,” she told her man, though at a volume everybody around the table could hear. “Besides, if you started talkin' about sex, I promise you, you'd have gotten  _none_ tonight.”

Logan chuckled. He was easily over half a millennium old, likely a good deal more than that. He could handle some celibacy without it hurting him too much. If anybody knew how old he really was, they'd be surprised he didn't need a pill to get it up. Which was what made it so funny, a sort of private joke between the two of them – they were both 'too old' for sex, but despite that and the hamper of Rogue's skin, they did still have a healthy physical relationship, even after all these centuries together.

“Please,” Mal agreed firmly.

“You're a doctor, right?” Kaylee asked Simon politely.

“Kid certainly looks the part,” Marie agreed with a slight smirk.

“Uh, yes,” Simon agreed. “Though I'm not sure how I _look_ the part... I was a trauma surgeon on Osiris, in Capital City.”

“Can't be all that much call for a trauma surgeon in the Core,” Logan suggested.

“I reattached a girl's whole leg once,” Simon protested. “There wasn't even a scar.” The boy smirked to himself. “She named her hamster after me.”

The two mutants shared a Look. One that said, quite clearly, “a  _hamster_ ?” with amusement completely at the boy's expense.

“You're awful young to be a doctor,” Kaylee noted with interest.

“You're very young to be a ship's mechanic,” Simon countered with a polite smile.

“No how,” Kaylee answered with cheerful modesty. “Machines just got workin's an' they... talk to me,” she explained with an easy shrug.

“That's a rare gift,” Book praised the girl with solemn, grave approval.

“Oh, not like bein' a _doctor_ ,” Kaylee objected. “Helping fix people, that's important.”

“Only to the people who are in need of fixing,” Marie corrected lightly. “Not one of us at this table is relying on the doc's work to see us through to our next port, but we're _all_ relyin' on _you_ for that, Hun,” she said with a smile.

“No pressure, of course,” Logan added with a smirking grin of his own as he reached for another slice of the tomato.

“Course not,” Kaylee agreed. “ _Serenity_ won't let us down any time soon. Especially if we manage to get a new compression coil soon,” she added, and that last was clearly a very pointed remark towards the captain.

“As long as the one we've got is workin', we can't afford another one,” Mal answered firmly.

A lull in the conversation descended on them all.

“So who owns the weights I spotted in the cargo bay?” Logan asked, before the general silence of people eating and unable to think of what to say got uncomfortable.

“I do,” Jayne answered. “Interested in doin' a few sets?” he asked. “I'll spot you if you'll return the favour,” he offered eagerly.

Logan chuckled.

It was Rogue who spoke though. “I'm Logan's spotter,” she told them all with a smirk.

“And I spot for her,” Logan agreed. “When we have access to weights, that is.”

And not that Rogue most particularly _needed_ to train with weights. Super-strength and all. Still, the repetitive motion with _some_ weight to it kept her body trimmed just the way she liked it, and Logan certainly appreciated her efforts. Besides, she always kept going until she worked up a sweat, and he liked to see her sweaty.

“And when you don't?” Dobson pressed.

“Well, then we beat the snot out of each other for two hours, 'stead a just one,” Rogue explained with a carefree wave of her hand and a smile on her face.

“Uh...” Simon said.

Logan snorted in amusement and shoved another bite of food into his mouth, not bothering to answer the kid when he hadn't actually asked a question yet.

“You look so happy together,” Kaylee noted, confusion evident in her tone, not to mention written all over her face. “Why would you beat on each other?”

“Because my girl isn't some defenceless flower,” Logan said firmly. “Impossibly in love we may be, but we're not joined at the hip.”

“We both need our space now and then, and considering how handsome Logan is,” Rogue said with a fondly exasperated expression.

“To say nothing of how incredibly gorgeous you are,” he countered with a doting smile of his own.

“Well, there's gonna be the unwanted showin' interest,” Rogue finished, returning her attention to the table as she gave them all a helpless shrug.

“Like the guy who shot you for not getting him off?” Jayne asked.

“Like the poser who shot me in the back 'cause I broke his pal's arm, two ribs, and finally his thick skull when he still didn't seem to get that I was rejectin' his proposition,” Rogue agreed, and with a pleasantness that most people wouldn't use when listing injuries that they'd inflicted on a person.

“That's a lot of pain to inflict on a person,” Mal noted, eyebrows raised high in question.

“Especially for just propositioning you,” Dobson agreed.

“Prick also had a knife at her throat and was reaching for his fly when he made that 'proposition',” Logan growled lowly.

“You were there?” Zoe asked.

Logan nodded.

“Then why did, uh...” Simon stumbled.

“Is 'Rogue' really such a hard name to remember?” Rogue asked.

Simon ducked his head a moment in embarrassment and silent apology. “If you were there, then why did Rogue have to, that is...”

“Oh, I gutted the guy when she was done with him,” Logan assured the boy with the easy confidence of someone who doesn't care if people know he killed someone. “And the guy who shot her too. My Rogue had already done all that damage before I could even reach the bastard,” he said proudly.


	3. Chapter 3

They were in the engine-room when they heard the yelling. Kaylee had been so obliging as to be willing to show them her still (engine-room was only off-limits if they didn't have an escorting crew member), and Jayne had come along as one always eager to sample the produce.

Since Kaylee and Jayne both intended to investigate the yelling, and as they'd already been asked to not be in the engine-room (or on the bridge, or in the cargo-bay) without an escort, Rogue and Logan figured they might as well tag along and see what they could both vaguely hear was happening down in the cargo-bay.

There were always interesting undertones of body-language that the sharpest ear wouldn't, couldn't, notice, and there was some distance between the two sections of the ship, so words spoken, rather than yelled, were less than distinct.

Besides, whatever Scott may have once thought on the subject, Logan was big on being subtle, of flying under the radar when he could, and Rogue was just as keen on it. Unless it ran counter to having some harmless fun, or in the case of events like Cage Fights and races, profitable fun.

“You think I wouldn't shoot a Shepherd?” Dobson could be heard demanding. And heard even by Jayne and Kaylee. “Back off!”

“Just take the kid!” Mal's voice came.

“Get your hands off me,” Simon protested, and as they closed the distance to the cargo-bay, even his lower voice should have been audible to the two without the enhanced hearing.

“Stand the hell down!” Dobson again.

Kaylee, to Rogue and Logan's quiet horror, was the first to step through the door into the cargo-bay.

“Everybody just stop it!” Book protested. “Stop it!”

“What's going on?” Kaylee asked.

Dobson spun, and fired his gun when he was no longer facing the people he'd actually been threatening with it.

Now, back in the days of the X-Men and the Brotherhood – and so many other mutant groups that had all passed into extinction either when the 'cure' was weaponised or when it was institutionalised – Magneto had been so aware of everything metal that he could stop a bullet that had been fired before it could hit its intended target, given the standard distance police officers liked to maintain when they had their weapons raised. That is, just near enough to yell at you.

If Magneto was the one actually firing the gun – generally one he'd taken and had turned around in the air and facing the previous wielder – then he was capable of stopping that bullet even faster, because he knew exactly when it was being launched.

Rogue, in all the time that she'd had Magneto's powers, had also gotten them down to being that instinctual, that aware, and she'd even been able to do more delicate work than Magneto had ever even thought of due to the combination of other, similar mutations. Unfortunately for Kaylee, Rogue had stopped that bulled five feet in front of  _herself_ , and that was about where Kaylee was. Then again, if the bullet had halted in the air, things would have likely become very tense on the ship.

Rogue had stopped it from going too deep, though.

Kaylee reached down to her brand new injury and pulled out the bloody – but still mercifully  _whole_ – bullet with a sickening, sucking, squelchy sound and a weak, disbelieving “huh” when she brought it up to her face to look at it, at which point she took a couple of staggering steps backward into the bulkhead and promptly slid down once she had something to keep her relatively upright.

“Kaylee!” exclaimed a female voice from above them all, and the pitter-patter of feet running down stairs followed.

Mal grabbed his gun from off the floor, even as Dobson swung his gun back around. A gun that Shepherd Book promptly liberated him of with near-brutal efficiency. With that particular threat removed, Simon rushed to Kaylee's side – Mal barely a step behind him. Despite the fact that Dobson was no longer a threat, Jayne still pulled his gun from his holster and marched up to the man who still hadn't quite recovered from being pistol-whipped with his own gun.

“You're not killing this man,” Book informed the very angry gun-hand.

“Not right away,” Jayne agreed.

“He's no threat,” Book stated, as though that was a reason not to gut the man who'd shot a girl he cared very much about.

Closer to where Rogue and Logan were standing, Mal had pried Kaylee's other hand away from her gunshot wound, and gave her a hopeful smile.

“That ain't hardly a mosquito bite,” he assured her, relieved that the bullet hadn't gone in too deep.

“Big mosquito,” Kaylee quipped back, and raised the bullet once more so that it was in her captain's face. “It's supposed to be you an' Zoe an' Jayne gettin' shot at Captain,” she informed him. “Not me.”

“You're not going to be leavin' us over a trifling thing like a bullet now, are ya Kaylee?” Mal probed hopefully.

Kaylee shook her head. “Even with bullets flyin', who'd want to leave  _Serenity_ ?” she asked with a smile that was weaker than her usual bright and cheerful grin.

“Oh the man that shot you is probably wishing he was elsewhere, _mei mei_ ,” said the perfumed woman as she reached the mechanic's side, giving a significant glance over to where Jayne was demanding Book stand aside.

“Not gonna happen,” the Shepherd answered, resolute.

“I ain't jokin' with you, Preacher,” Jayne informed the older man as he raised his gun.

“Jayne,” Zoe snapped from the walk-way above him, and cocked her own gun. “Just tie 'im up,” she ordered firmly.

Jayne grit his teeth, but put his own gun away again and stalked off to get something to bind the man with, while Zoe came down from the walkway and took Dobson's gun from Book, much more politely but still very tense and with a hand on her own gun as she requested the piece.

“Is the infirmary working?” Simon asked.

Mal nodded. “It's stocked,” he answered.

The two men both moved then to lift Kaylee, neither one of them wanting her to put any stress on the injury, just in case, when the voice of the ship's pilot came over ship's speakers.

“Captain, we've been hailed by an Alliance Cruiser,” the man informed them all. “Ordered to stay on course and dock for prisoner transfer.”

Simon straightened and stepped back, tension in every line of his body.

“Change course,” he demanded, his voice surprisingly calm for how tensely he was holding himself. “Run.”

With Simon not standing directly in the way, and with him clearly being reluctant to perform any sort of medicine right at that moment, Rogue gave Wolverine a nudge. He answered her nudge with a short nod, and moved passed the boy to collect up the girl in his arms, and turned to take her to the infirmary.

The perfumed woman followed him. Well, she was holding Kaylee's hand rather desperately. The hand that didn't have the bullet still held between her fingers.

Rogue would stay and watch the goings on while he applied the knowledge he'd gained from the time they'd decided, well hell, might be interesting to see how many different qualification they could get. Medicine had been one of the areas they'd both gotten such appropriate qualifications for. Doctoring, nursing, figuring out meds, birth to death and everything in between, even psychology. They'd studied the lot.

They had the time.

And Logan enjoyed laughing in the faces of every person (living and dead) who thought he was too much of an animal to be able to do something so intellectual.

“The hell with that,” Mal answered, disbelief written all over his face and clear to be heard in his voice. “You brought this trouble down on us. I'm dumping you with the law.”

“And Kaylee?” Simon asked, trying to force the issue. “Does anybody else on this ship have even the slightest idea of how to fix her?”

“Been shot before,” Mal stated evenly. “Managed without a doctor then.”

“No way the Fed's will let us walk, Sir,” Zoe pointed out softly.

Rogue still heard her.

“We could dump him in a shuttle and leave him for them,” Mal countered.

“Then you'd be down a shuttle,” Rogue pointed out as she reached out and touched Simon at the base of his neck. The boy dropped, and she got his memories, his reasons for demanding they turn tail and run. Very noble of the kid really, but he was already planning to pump his sister full of drugs until she was as he remembered her, which counted as stupid and pointless as far as Rogue was concerned. His very brief interaction with his sister when he'd rescued her from that institution, as opposed to his memories of their youth together, showed two _very_ different people, and alluded to a good number of reasons why the girl would have changed, and a few as to why she wouldn't be able to go back to the way she'd been. Ever.

Kid was just too naïve to recognise that.

“What did you just do?” Mal asked, concerned that whatever it was would be used on him next.

Rogue smiled, and lied through her teeth. “It's called the Vulcan Nerve Pinch,” she said, as she had told over a million other people before him. “Kid's just unconscious.”

“Which still leaves us with a whole mess of troubles,” Mal grumbled as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

Rogue's smile became a smirk. “I can sort it out,” she said. “Give me a couple of minutes with Dobson behind closed doors, I'll be able to find out what he's told that Cruiser, and then I'll spin it around so your two troublemakers are off your ship, and the Alliance will thank you for your assistance, probably with a nice little fee.”

Mal blinked. Rapidly.

“Ma'am, if you can do all that, I will be severely impressed,” he told her. “An' considering the tale you gave us all over the table, I just might be inclined to let you.”

“Sir?” Zoe queried. “Are you sure about this?”

“No,” Mal admitted frankly, and turned back to Rogue. “No one does that sort of thing for free,” he said plainly.

“No they don't,” Rogue agreed. “I want all the boy's luggage. That's his medical bag, his silky finery, and that big ol' mystery box he'd snuck down here to check on.”

“You know what all is in it?” Mal asked.

Rogue shook her head, and gave another smile. “But I do like surprises,” she added. “I'll just go an  _talk_ with Mister Dobson, shall I?” she suggested with a smile on her face – oozing the same charm that one Remy le Beau, also known as Gambit, had once been gifted with.

He'd been in his fifties when Logan had introduced her to the mutant. She'd insisted on dragging him down to the Basin, just for Mardi Gras – with the promise that she never would again if he'd just come willingly – and he'd countered that he'd come willingly if he could look up the man who'd been there the day he'd woken up with no knowledge of who he was.

Rogue had been more than willing to agree.

Upon meeting the aging Cajun card-sharp, Rogue had been just about thrilled to pieces to absorb his mutation. That charm of his allowed him to... exert an influence, a subtle one, over the mind. It was a hypnotic mutation, one that Gambit used to compel others to believe what he said and go along with essentially whatever he suggested. Kind of like with the Jedi Mind Trick from Star Wars, and like the Jedi Mind Trick, it didn't work on people with  _too_ strong a will or who held a completely opposite opinion to the one you were trying to convince them of.

That was something that had pissed the man off about Logan, actually, according to the story he'd told.

“You do that,” Mal agreed, and ran his hand through his hair again, bringing it to rest at his neck where he worked at the tension knotting the muscles there. “I really hope you can deliver on that promise.”

Rogue smiled at him over her shoulder as she turned to collect the man who was now her prisoner, and winked at the captain before she proceeded to urge the fed to his feet before she started man-handling him in the direction she wanted him to go.

“Rogue?” Logan queried as she dragged Dobson passed the infirmary, where he'd just finished patching up Kaylee.

“Five minutes Sweet-chops,” she called back.

Logan chuckled fondly and shook his head as she disappeared from view.

“Um...” Kaylee hesitated to ask.

“She's gonna interrogate the man, which will take five minutes, at which point she'll let me in on what she's thinking,” Logan explained. “Don't you worry about a thing, Kid,” he advised with a smirk. “My girl, she knows what she's doing.”

~oOo~

“Are you the captain of this vessel?” the Alliance officer asked.

Rogue responded to this coolly delivered question with an easy smile and a confident answer. “I'm Captain Anna Raven,” she told him. “My firefly here is called Raymond, and I believe these,” she continued and half-turned, giving a sweeping gesture to the bound forms of Simon Tam and Lawrence Dobson, “are yours.”

The officer nodded. “Two fugitives, and an officer, was the wave we received. Though... it was scrambled,” he added, giving her a suspicious look.

Rogue's easy smile didn't even twitch. “Hun, you're bein' rude. You haven't told me  _your_ name,” she scolded with a flirtatious smirk, refusing to address his suspicions until the niceties had been completed.

“I do beg your pardon ma'am,” the man agreed. “I'm Captain Richard Ploski.”

“Pleased to meet you, and to have these troublemakers off my ship,” Rogue said. “Now, this one,” she said, and nudged Simon with the toe of her boot. “He came aboard with what I _now_ know is a false ident card, a medicine bag, and a suitcase of nicely pressed shirts. I run a legitimate passenger transport here, Captain Ploski,” she said earnestly. “If my ident scanner didn't let me know his was fake, then either it's getting old or the kid's good.”

Captain Ploski nodded.

“This one, on the other hand,” she said, and her face twisted unhappily, “this one's your officer.”

“What?” Captain Ploski yelped.

“I do hope you'll forgive his treatment, but he shot my mechanic when she walked into the room where he was makin' the arrest. She didn't do a thing to deserve the scar she's gonna have, even with us having raided the doctor's bag of medicines. Girl is more cheerful than sunflowers, and we're all very fond of her. Even the other passengers, who we only took on a few hours ago, have already become very fond of her. Your officer is tied up for his own protection, Captain.”

Captain Ploski nodded in acceptance of this. “The rather scrambled wave we received said two fugitives,” he said.

Rogue shook her head. “Can't help you with that I'm afraid,” she said apologetically. “None of the other passengers match the description of the girl Mr Dobson's warrant claimed Dr Tam was supposed to be with, and like I said, he only had a bag of medical supplies and a suitcase of clothes. The numbers probably got mixed up with the scrambled out-going.”

“Captain Raven, you still haven't told me why the message was scrambled,” Captain Ploski stated.

“It wasn't made from the bridge,” Rogue said simply with a shrug. “Our mechanic's been having to play around with how the ship runs, since the compression coil is getting a bit old, and my first mate is _very_ tight with the purse-strings. The bridge is the only place on the ship where a wave can be sent from without the new re-wiring making an unholy mess of it. It's made things very awkward for our pilot when another member of the crew wants to wave home a few times. I figure, one more trip like this, and my first mate will give over the funds our mechanic needs, but I'd figured that five trips ago too,” she finished, a little ruefully.

Captain Ploski winced in sympathy at this.

“Well, there's a reward for the capture of Simon Tam, though not as sizable as that for his sister,” he said with a sigh. “As for our officer, I'll be sure to make a note that he needs further training, if he is shooting mechanics just because they have unfortunate timing.”

Rogue nodded and pulled a gun off her belt. “Mr Dobson's piece,” she said as she held it out to the Alliance captain.

“Confiscated for the safety of all aboard your ship?” Captain Ploski asked, and nodded in approval as he accepted it. “Thank you ma'am. I really don't see the point in reclaiming Dr Tam's shirts, and you've said you raided his medical bag to help your mechanic?”

“That's right,” Rogue agreed easily.

“Well, then there's just the matter of Dobson's things,” Captain Ploski said decisively. “And giving you the reward for delivering one of the Tam siblings back into Alliance custody,” he added with a smile. “Maybe we can even find a compression coil to throw in, as an apology for what one of our officers did to your mechanic.”

“That would be very much appreciated,” Rogue agreed gladly, “and this neat little pile here are Mr Dobson's things.”

Ploski nodded, and summoned a couple of his men from within the ship to collect two for the cells, as well as some luggage.

Not ten minutes later, the Alliance Cruiser was disengaging from the firefly class, and Rogue had a nice neat sum of credits in her pocket to go with the compression coil that now rested, waiting, in the cargo bay. There had been no search of the ship, no fuss, not even any grumbling or sticky-beaking around by the grunts who'd collected Simon, Dobson, and the bags.

Captain Ploski had just watched the men with one eye as he sorted out the money matter, and then shaken Rogue's gloved hand farewell.

“Can we keep her?” Wash asked when she strolled back to the dining area after the Alliance Cruiser was gone.

“I come as part of a set,” Rogue warned with a smile as she set the credits, and the new compression coil, in the middle of the table before sliding pointedly into the Wolverine's lap and happily rested her head on his shoulder.

Logan reached up and massaged her neck firmly with one gloved hand. Using the number of different mutations that she had, for that length of time, just to make sure things would run perfectly smooth the way she wanted them to... She'd sleep deeply when Logan got her back to their assigned bunk, that was certain. She wasn't exhausted, not by a long shot, but she would sleep deeply once she was out.

“And your man did a damn fine job fixin' up Kaylee after she got shot,” Mal responded plainly.

“My girl here does tidier stitches,” Logan admitted with an easy shrug.

“You're both doctors as well?” Kaylee asked, a bandage around her middle in case of spotting and with a new change of clothes as she sat at the table.

“You sure don't look like doctors,” Jayne observed thoughtfully. “That Simon kid, could tell he was a doctor just by lookin' at 'im, all sissified as he was.”

“Hun, the things we're qualified to be would shock you,” Rogue said with a deeply amused smirk tucked up in one corner of her mouth. “An' not just because it would be a list as longer than your leg.”

“Well, by the reckoning of this tidy sum you've set on my table, I'd be more than happy to invite you to join our crew,” Mal decided. “Whatever your professions are.”

“We're generally self-employed,” Logan told the man frankly, “and not good at taking orders,” he added as a caution.

“Very few on this crew are,” Mal admitted ruefully as he glared around at those who were part of his crew.

“We could still do our own thing,” Marie offered to Logan speculatively, not actually committing herself to the idea. She'd let Logan make that choice. If he wasn't the one to pick where they settled – and they did, on occasion, settle in one place for a while – then he got an itch to move on faster than a person could sneeze. “Any time the ship makes landfall.”

Logan grunted in acknowledgement.  _< I guess it'd pass the time,>_ he added mentally to Marie.  _< And I can tell, you like these folks already. Even Jayne. That cargo might be an issue regards our stayin' though. We'll see.>_

Marie smiled back at him, love shining in her eyes.  _< How'd I get so lucky as to have you in my life?>_ she asked him.

_< I seem to recall something about you stowing away in my trailer,>_ Logan teased her before he turned to Mal and the rest of the crew. “I'd like a bit more time to think about it, but we're probably in,” he told them.


	4. Chapter 4

“So, this box,” Logan said once Marie had set it down in the bunk that _had_ been assigned to Simon before he'd been evicted from the craft. He'd cleared the space, but she'd fetched it. He had some good muscles on him, but Rogue was stronger – thanks to a very nasty accident with one Carol Danvers, Rogue had gotten a lot of very nice side-effects, once the other woman had been dealt with that is.

“All these centuries,” Rogue started softly, “we've figured out a lot of things Logan. Never got around to having kids though. Just kept on picking up strays an' taking care of 'em.”

Logan blinked. “There's something in this box that ...?” he asked, only to trail off when Rogue shook her head.

“There's a girl inside, another stray for us,” Rogue answered. “The stiff little dandy's younger sister,” she added when she saw Logan getting worked up about the idea of human trafficking. She felt the same way about that, and for a lot of the same reasons. When he was completely calm again, she dropped the final bomb. “He'd rescued her from a lab,” she said solemnly.

Logan snarled at the very idea of a lab where people were being kept, where they needed to be rescued from. They'd both seen a good number of those since the fight against Magneto and Phoenix at Alcatraz over the 'cure', and not one of those labs had been any more pleasant than Stryker's base at Alcali Lake. The activities performed within those labs had been equally abhorrent.

“That kid wouldn't know the first thing about how to take care of someone that had come from that sort of situation,” Logan growled lowly.

Rogue nodded in agreement. “His medicine bag is full of the drugs he intended to use to 'undo' whatever it was that happened to her,” she said with a frown. “I don't know what exactly  _did_ happen to the girl, but what little I saw of her after the rescue... It didn't look like something that could be undone. She's just going to have to live with the changes they forced on her, and learn to function again.”

Logan brought his hands together in front of him and conscientiously rubbed at the spaces between his knuckles. The spaces where his claws came out. The whole time though, his eyes were fixed on the white in the front of Rogue's dark hair. If there was anybody who knew about learning to live with what they got dealt, it was the two of them. They could help the girl. They would.

“The Alliance wants her back,” Logan realised. “That captain said there was a larger reward for the sister than the brother. He just broke her out, she's their expensive experiment.”

Rogue nodded.

“She'll need to disappear,” Logan noted.

Again, Rogue nodded.

Logan smiled. “We're good at making people disappear,” he stated.

Rogue's frown finally left her face as she smiled in appreciation of that particular truth. “We are,” she agreed with a pleased nod.

“We are gonna have to talk to this girl though,” Logan pointed out. “You want to be the one to pop her out, or will I?”

Rogue brought a hand up to her mouth to stifle a chuckle. “Logan, she's naked in there,” she said plainly.

“I'll get something for her to wear,” Logan decided, and abruptly crossed out of that bunk and into theirs. Rather than re-enter the bunk when he had picked out some clothes – one of his white tees, as well as a pair of draw-string sweats of Marie's, the only things that were most likely to fit the girl of unknown physicality – he just slid the door open enough for him to stick his arm through, and left the clothes there while he stood guard outside the door.

While he'd been fetching the clothes, Rogue had been carefully disengaging all of the functions of the box except for the air supply. It wouldn't do for the girl to go into shock, or asphyxiate in there either.

With everything as it should be, Marie grabbed a blanket off the bed with one hand while she pushed the lid off the box with the other. Inside, shivering as she slowly woke, was indeed a girl, naked as the day she was born, though with considerably more hair than an infant would have. A lot more leg too.

Rogue carefully bundled the girl into the blanket and lifted her out.

The girl gasped a sharp intake of breath and her eyes opened wide, frightened, once she was out of the box.

“Shh,” Marie soothed. “It's alright, you're safe,” she promised.

“Who are you?” the girl asked.

“I'm Rogue, and just outside the door is my man, the Wolverine,” Marie answered. “We want to help you.”

“Simon?” the girl asked.

“Gone,” Rogue answered simply. “He was discovered by an Alliance Fed, and that Fed got a wave out. It was all sorts of messy, and the captain wanted both your brother an the Fed off his ship because of that. I admit, I helped that happen, but I'm not giving _you_ back to them Baby-girl. You don't deserve that sort of pain. Now, if you'll get dressed, I can get the Wolverine in here, and we can all try and figure out what needs to happen.”

The girl nodded silently, and accepted the clothes Rogue handed to her.

That was a good sign. The girl wasn't in shock from waking up sooner than originally determined by the statistics on the box. She'd be a bit adrift and compliant, quiet and sleepy even, for a little while yet, but the drugs would finish wearing off and she'd be herself again in no time. Whoever 'herself' was.

Actually, it might take the girl months before she finally was 'herself', and it would probably be for the first time, rather than 'again'. Traumatic experiences in labs, especially where the brain is being fiddled with, tend to do that to a person.

Simon hadn't known much about what had been done to his sister, but everything he'd managed to find out, Rogue had learned from when she'd touched his neck and sent him to the floor.

_< She dressed yet?>_ Logan asked mentally.

“The girl is clothed,” stated the girl herself, her words directed to the door.

Rogue blinked in surprise, and when the door opened to reveal Logan, he looked from the girl over to Rogue, the same feeling shining in his eyes as well.

“A telepath?” Logan asked as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him again. “I thought the higher powers didn't like that sort of thing.”

“They talk to me... they want me to talk...” the girl rambled softly.

“Oh Baby,” Marie breathed, and gathered the girl up in her arms again.

The girl flinched. “Taker,” she said, her eyes dark as they looked up at Rogue, a frown on her face. “So many... so many voices...”

Maried closed her eyes, pained by the reminder of what she was. “Yes,” she admitted.

“No,” Logan corrected firmly as he wrapped his arms around Marie's shoulders. “You're a giver. You give me a reason to smile when I wake up every morning.”

“My skin -” she protested softly.

“Gives a lot of dead people a chance to still make a difference,” Logan cut in, gentle but firm.

Suddenly a palm cupped Rogue's cheek, and both of the mutants realised that the girl had reached up and done it at the same time.

Rogue's eyes went wide as the girl's memories, her life, her pain, flooded into her psyche.

Logan was quick to pull the hand away from Rogue's face, both for Rogue's sake and for the good of the girl. The damage had been done though.

The girl fell back, out cold, and would remain so for a period of time that they couldn't really calculate, since, because the touch had come completely without warning, Rogue hadn't been able to control her skin at all. Rogue was breathing deeply, doing her best to meditate as she sorted through the memories she'd just absorbed.

“Logan...”

“I'll take her to the infirmary, set up an IV, and tell the crew a nicely doctored cover,” Logan promised, not even needing to be asked.

Rogue smiled tightly, but with gratitude, and closed her eyes as her man gathered up the unconscious girl in his arms. Everything Rogue had learned... a great deal of it was buried under psychosis in the girl's own mind, buried and hidden and pushed aside. Then there were the triggers, the subliminal messages... Rogue was going to have to sort those out quickly, or they'd take root and be able to affect  _her_ as well.

And that would be  _very bad_ .

~oOo~

“What's this?” Mal asked, stunned, when he spotted Logan carrying a floppy body into the infirmary, having been checking on Kaylee who was still making sure the engine ran smooth, even with stitches in her middle.

“A girl,” Logan grunted.

“That I can see. But we've been in the Black for a couple of sleep-cycles already, and I ain't seen this person until now, which strikes me as particularly strange,” Mal pointed out.

“She was in the kid's mystery box,” Logan allowed.

Mal's face hardened. “He was shifting  _people_ ?” he questioned lowly. “You think she was for some outer-world baron, or was for the kid's own use?”

“It's worse than that,” Logan said as he set the girl down on a table and started setting up an IV for her. “According to what Rogue found in the kid's stuff, this young lady here is his baby sister. He'd just gotten her out of an Alliance lab where they were using the kid as a guinea pig for all sorts of sick stuff.”

Mal blinked in surprise at that. His rage at the idea of the Core-boy dealing in people had grown when the news that this girl was his sister had grown, but the rescue...

“They're lookin' for her, aren't they?” Mal asked flatly, rhetorically. “That's what Dobson was so keen on.”

“Likely,” Logan agreed.

“ _Da shiong la se la ch'wohn tian_ ,” Mal complained.

Logan raised an eyebrow at the man, as though asking what elephants had to do with anything – except that he'd never much cared to learn Mandarin, though he'd picked some up, so he only had a vague idea of what Mal had just said. The tone had fairly well conveyed that he was swearing though.

“I can't afford to have that sort of trouble on my boat,” Mal said plainly. “Harbouring fugitives makes getting even dishonest business a lot harder.”

Logan chuckled. “If I know my girl, she's probably making up plans and papers to turn this little fugitive into our daughter,” he said. “Don't worry about it Cap,” he advised. “Me and Rogue, we're old hands at getting people out of labs and makin' it so they're never found again by the people who'd want 'em back. If you really get twitchy, we can point ya to a couple of planets where we can disappear safely.”

Mal nodded slowly. “Shiny,” he allowed. “The girl gonna be alright?” he asked, changing tack now that his concerns for his ship and crew were allayed. “Bein' a science experiment... can't think that would have been much fun for the kid.”

Logan shook his head. “She'll be fragile for a while, I expect,” he said. “Like I said though, Rogue and me, we've got experience with this shit. When she wakes up, at least one of us will be with her pretty much all the time until we've got her stable.”

“Can I take it that Rogue is going through the brother's things, trying to find out more about what got done to this girl?” Mal asked.

Logan nodded, and was wondering slightly that Mal hadn't asked what her name was yet. Of course, with fugitives... it was a delicate balance that needed to happen. The outline of the situation needed to be known, so that it was known that getting caught needed be avoided, details and minutiae needed to be avoided though, so that letting something slip that needed to be kept secret wouldn't happen.

“Can't keep calling her 'the girl', or 'kid' all the time,” Mal said, broaching one of the more delicate subjects tactfully.

Logan frowned. They didn't know the girl's name yet. Well, Rogue did, somewhere, but she was busy sorting out everything she'd absorbed from the girl, so he wasn't about to interrupt her by asking. For the girl's sake though, whatever her real name was, they couldn't call her that any more, though more immediately, Mal was still waiting for an answer to his non-question.

“We'll call her Jean,” Logan told the other man, deciding that the name of the last unstable telepath he'd known would serve for now. “Less she decides she wants a different name when she wakes up.”

Mal nodded in acceptance. “Well, there's work to be done, and Wash says we should be landing soon.”

“Captain, if you could keep to yourself that this girl is going to be looked for? By more than just a private party, I mean,” Logan requested. “Let the crew think she was gonna be sold to some outer-world baron.”

Mal nodded tightly. “Sure,” he agreed.

“I'll be right behind you once I know Rogue's alright,” Logan promised. “She doesn't always take this sort of thing well,” he added.

“I'll be fine,” Rogue answered him from the door of the infirmary. Her hair was drenched with sweat and she was looking exhausted. “And I'll stay with her,” she added. “I'm not in any condition to go anywhere else, an' if she wakes up alone...”

Logan nodded. “Yeah,” he said, acknowledging and agreeing with the unspoken.

“I'm missing something,” Mal noted.

“Say you just escaped from a lab where you'd been tortured,” Logan said. “Everything and anything medical-looking is now associated in your mind with that torture.”

“Waking up in an infirmary, with an IV in her arm, will make her panic and think she's back there, at least until she sees the couch with its very colourful throw just out the door,” Rogue explained.

Mal nodded. “Right,” he said, accepting that. “Girl's your charge,” he informed them. “By all means bring her to join us at sit-down meals when she's up, but she's your charge.”

“Wouldn't have it any other way,” Rogue said with a tired smile.

Logan wrapped his arms around her and kissed her softly. “You okay?” he asked when Mal had left. The man didn't even much care for public displays of affection, it seemed.

“It was _bad_ , Logan,” Rogue whispered, needing to say it aloud, rather than just share the thought with him. “She's got triggers.”

“Shit,” Logan swore. “Can you break 'em down?”

“I already did once,” Rogue answered, and tapped her own skull. “Took usin' Phoenix -”

Logan winced. The consciousness that was the Phoenix had long been expunged from Marie's mind. It was interesting to note that the personalities died natural deaths after a while, and often that was roughly in time with when the person themselves had died. Some of them, like Phoenix, had stuck around a while longer. Sometimes days, sometimes months, sometimes a few years, depending on how strong the personality was. Drained to death, the Phoenix had still been a truly powerful telekinetic and telepathic entity, and had hung about for another fifteen years before Rogue had finally been rid of her voice.

The powers had stayed though, and Rogue had complete and total control over those powers now, control like Jean had never had. Rogue saying that she had 'used Phoenix' meant that she'd needed a lot of power and control for the task.

“But I'll definitely be able to do it again,” Rogue finished.

“Are you okay?” Logan asked again, rubbing his hands up and down her arms in a comforting manner, concern all over his face.

Rogue nodded. “Just tired,” she assured him. “Very, very tired.”

“You get some rest while we're landed,” he instructed – he was going to be going with Mal, Zoe and Jayne to the meet on Whitefall. “If not sooner.”

“I will,” she promised. “But while she's out, I want to go through her mind and deal with her triggers. It will be better for her if she's not awake while I do that. The rest though, the rest she's actually got to work through, just like everybody else did.”

“ _Just like we did,”_ went unsaid between them.

“Okay,” Logan allowed, then dived in for a firm, long kiss. Long enough that she absorbed his mutation afresh again. Though it was a constant part of her now, a little boost of it now and then was good for what ailed his girl.

“Mm,” Rogue hummed when Logan finally released her. “Better than coffee.”

Logan chuckled, and gave her a quick little peck to her lips. “You're still going to sleep deep again tonight.”

Rogue couldn't disagree with that.

~oOo~

A couple of hours out from Whitefall, a generally concerning announcement came over the ship's comms.

“This is the captain,” the announcement began solemnly. “We're passing another ship. Looks to be Reavers.”

The Wolverine and the Rogue shared a Look. They'd dealt with Reavers before.

“From the size, probably a raiding party.”

It had been a raiding party they'd dealt with the last time they'd encountered the rabid animals that had once been people.

“Could be they're headed somewhere particular, could be they've already hit someone and they're full up. So everyone stay calm,” Mal instructed.

Logan solemnly rubbed his knuckles, and Rogue lay a tender hand over both of his.

“We try to run, they'll have to chase us. It's their way. We're holding course. We should be passing 'em in a minute, so we'll see what they do,” Mal told them all. “Zoe, you come on up to the bridge,” he requested after a brief pause.

“They board us, I'll keep 'em out of here,” the Wolverine promised Marie. “You said it yourself, you're tired,” he said, cutting her off before she could protest that she could fight too. “Come on Baby,” he requested with a rueful smile. “It's been a long time since I had the chance to protect you.”

“They might not attack us,” Rogue pointed out.

“They might not,” Logan agreed with a nod. “But if they do,” he said, and deliberately left off. They both knew what followed.

“If they do,” Rogue acceded. “Actually, could you protect me right now Logan?” she requested softly. “I'm going to start getting those triggers out of her.”

“What do you want me to do?” Logan answered her, a little confused. “I know you don't need me for this.” They'd done this before, removed triggers from a person. Rogue hadn't needed help from him any of those times. Her asking now surprised him.

“Just hold me,” Marie begged in a whisper, her hazel eyes fixed on the girl.

Logan silently wrapped his arms around his woman's waist and rested his chin on the top of her hair, while she extended her gloved hands so that they cradled the girl's face, an inch away from touching her. It was a focus, one that both Jean and the Professor had used, once upon a time. It was not needed normally, but this was delicate work, and Rogue wasn't going to risk anything going wrong.

“Count them off?” Logan requested softly, shifting to rest his cheek on her head instead of his chin.

“One... Two... Three... Four... Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Nine... Ten... Eleven... Twelve... Thirteen... Fourteen... Fifteen... Sixteen... Seventeen... Eighteen... Nineteen... Twenty... Twenty-one... Twenty-two... Twenty-three... Twenty-four... Twenty-five...” Rogue counted, then snorted. “And a half,” she finished with a slight smirk.

“Half?” Logan asked, pulling back slightly and looking at her over her shoulder.

“Her brother got her out in the middle of them planting another one,” Rogue explained, and wrapped her arms around her middle, taking a tight hold of Logan's arms where he was holding her.

“Shit,” Logan swore. “Rogue, the number of triggers they gave her -” he cut himself off.

“I know,” she agreed sadly.

“You counted them off one every couple of seconds,” Logan noted neutrally after they'd just stood there for a while. “You're not normally that fast.”

“Well, I'd already had one go of getting them out,” she reminded him. “I didn't have to approach each one from five different angles looking for the right way to remove it this time. I don't normally touch the kids we save when they're fresh out of the labs like she is.”

Logan nodded in understanding, and for a while, the two of them just stood there, with Marie's back tucked against Logan's chest, wrapped up in each other and watching the young woman who had been so sorely abused.


	5. Chapter 5

Logan forced himself not to curl his lip and scrunch up his nose at what the smell coming from within the boxes of 'medical supplies'. Oh, this stuff would save lives alright. The lives of the starving. Alliance 'foodstuffs', jam-packed with protein, vitamins, and even immunisation supplements. It was still brown gunk with a texture akin to warm caramel-toffee but that tasted more like the bottom of a ten-year-old shoe, with the sweaty sock still in it.

Then again, as the Shepherd had said as they all shared their first meal on board  _Serenity_ , a man could live from here 'til kingdom come if he had the right herbs and spices, and Marie really was a miracle worker in the kitchen.

Then again, she  _had_ picked up a certain mutation that was useful for that. The original owner of that mutation had called themselves 'Gourmet'. Seriously, some of the mutations that had been out there before... It boggled the mind, it really did. And it made Logan smile every time he sat down at the table to his Marie's cooking.

He went with Jayne to bury the goods in a shallow grave, then re-joined Mal and Zoe .

“The person you're selling to picked _this_ as the meet place?” he questioned with a sceptically raised eyebrow.

“It has already been observed by my very astute first mate that this is an exceptionally ideal place for settin' up an ambush,” Mal replied.

“In not so many words,” Zoe added.

Logan snorted in amusement. Yeah, the captain was one for getting verbose on a whim, though he could be concise and to the point as well, or extremely blunt. Blunt also frequently worked. Being a man who fought with his body – from his boots to his knees to his elbows to his shoulders to cracking other people's skulls with his own – as well as his fists and claws, Logan was well aware that blunt had its place just as much as pointed.

It all depended on the occasion.

“The goods buried?” Mal asked.

“Jayne's just taking the gear back to the ship now,” Logan answered with a nod. “Don't see why you decided to ask me to come with you for this. Hell, I could have gone back to the ship with the gear and just stayed there 'til you got back.”

“Mostly 'cause Patience is most likely plannin' to shoot me again, rather than pay me,” Mal explained. “An' I reckon you're probably useful in a fight, as well as just after it.”

Logan snorted. The man had no idea what kind of a man he was in a fight, but he'd still decided to have him along. It was all kinds of stupid, as far as Logan was concerned, but at least the man had figured out Logan could do more than just fix people. He was damn good at breaking them too.

Jayne joined them, and was sent on his way to make two snipers unconscious before taking over for one of them, only he'd be shooting at Patience, rather than Mal, when the time came.

“Don't think it's a good spot, Sir,” Zoe repeated as they started to walk down into the canyon. “She still has the advantage over us.”

“Everyone always does,” Mal replied, and gave her a jaunty, mischievous smile that Logan could tell hid a lot of pain. “That's what makes us special.”

From the other end of the canyon, an posse of six rode up. A real, old-fashioned posse. Only one of them wasn't on a horse, and that kid was driving a quad with a trailer, no doubt to haul the goods once they got 'em.

“Ah!” snapped the old woman leading the group as she pulled her horse to a halt. “Well,” she said, once everyone was halted and facing off. “Malcolm Reynolds. How you doin' boy?” the bitten old crone asked.

“Walkin' an' talkin',” Mal answered.

“Zoe?” the woman continued, turning to the first mate. “You still riding with this old bum?”

Zoe canted her head in assent. “Awful lot of men to haul three crates,” she noted neutrally.

“Well, I couldn't be sure my boy Mal here wouldn't be lookin' for some kind of payback, you understand,” the old woman said with a sort of joviality.

“We're just on the job, Patience,” Mal said plainly. “Not interested in surprises.”

Then the woman noticed Logan, and went pale under her weathered tan, eyes growing wide in her face.

“Wolverine...” she breathed out.

“Hello Patty,” Logan returned in greeting. There were lots of people across the 'verse called Patience. It just so happened that this one that Mal was making a deal with was one that he knew.

“You haven't changed a bit,” she noted softly.

Logan shrugged. “That's how it goes,” he admitted with a shrug. “Now, you wouldn't be thinking of double-crossing on a perfectly legitimate business deal, would you Patty?”

“Aw hell Wolverine,” she grumbled, and cut her eyes back to Mal. “You got the goods? Because I don't see anything.”

Mal pulled back his coat – revealing his side-arm with the motion, but grabbed instead a brick of the foodstuffs and tossed it up to Patience.

“Once we have the coin, I'll be glad to tell you where the rest is,” he said as Patience unwrapped a corner and took a small bite from the brick.

“That's the stuff,” she agreed, and pulled out a draw-string pouch. “And that's the coin,” she declared as she tossed it to Mal. “So where's the rest?”

“Back end of this canyon, then half-a-mile east, bottom of the first hill,” Mal answered. “You'll see where it's been dug.”

“I reckon I will,” Patience agreed, but made no immediate move to leave the area.

“I'd appreciate it, if y'all turned around and rode out first,” Mal admitted after a tense moment.

Patience sighed, and looked back at Logan. “Rogue still with you?” she asked.

Logan nodded. “Minding another one back at the ship,” he told her.

Patience nodded. “Give 'er my love,” she said, and turned her horse around. “Come on you lot. This one's not worth the trouble of tryin' to hold on to two-hundred platinum,” she ordered.

Mal frowned to himself as they watched the posse about-face and quietly ride out. When they were just specks, he finally spoke.

“It went smooth,” he said, stunned. “It never goes smooth.”

Logan laughed, and before either the captain or his first mate could question him, he was walking back to  _Serenity_ .

Back to Marie, and the girl who needed to be taught how to save herself.

“Hey Sugar,” Marie greeted with a sleepy, content smile when he'd kissed her awake. She'd been having her nap on the couch just outside the infirmary, near enough if – beyond all expectation – the girl who was in there woke up that soon. “Have fun?”

“Patty sends her love,” Logan answered neutrally.

“Patty?!” Rogue yelped, eyes suddenly wide. “Lord... how is that girl?”

“Old. Weathered and wrinkly and cynical and _old_ ,” Logan replied softly. “But it was her alright.”

“Still wearin' her hair in pigtails?” Marie asked.

“Couldn't tell with the hat she was wearing over it. Looked like she'd cut most of her hair off though,” Logan answered with an amused smile.

“Reavers!” came the voice of the pilot over the comms, frantic. “Reavers incoming and headed straight for us! Kaylee, if you could please get your _pi gu_ into the engine-room!” he said as the ship lifted off the ground.

Mal, Zoe and Jayne had been not all that far behind Logan, and the door of the cargo-bay had just closed before that frantic announcement came.

Well, that would put off their questioning them about how they knew Patience for a while. Possibly even indefinitely, if they forgot during the frantic escape they were about to attempt.

“You got the deft touch in the engine-room,” Logan said with a rueful smile. He loved engines, loved working with them, on them, making them roar. Really he did. But with the slew of powers Rogue had collected prior to and during the purging – Magneto's most prominent among them in this instance – Rogue was the one who could _really_ make an engine sing. Hell, she could make it tap-dance if she cared to. “I'll keep an eye on the girl. Actually, I'll probably move her and the IV to the passenger bunks. She'll be more comfortable there, and the infirmary might be needed by someone else before she wakes up.”

Rogue nodded, kissed him briefly, and moved off to the engine-room. Kaylee was still injured, even if she was up and about, and it would be better for her to  _not_ strain those stitches.

~oOo~

Shepherd Book sat heavily on the couch that was just beyond both the passenger dorms and the infirmary, and slumped to cradle his head in his hands. The captain had ordered as many of the passengers as he could into the shuttle with the Companion, a last-ditch effort to keep them safe if they were boarded by the Reavers – the Shepherd had actually been the only one who had followed that particular order.

“Y'all right there, Shepherd?” Marie enquired kindly. She'd been heading back to Logan from the engine-room, now that the excitement was over and the Reavers had been outrun – they'd done an Ivan. She hadn't pulled an Ivan in years! It was certainly a way to get the blood pumping.

“Miss Rogue,” Book greeted, and lifted his head from his hands. “I... I don't know,” he admitted sadly. “I've been out of the Abbey for two days... I beat a law-man senseless, I've fallen in with criminals...”

“Ya defended the defenceless, an' the only thing criminal about what these people are doing is that the Alliance would arrest them for not leavin' things to go to waste,” Marie countered, offering what comfort she could.

“Is this what life is like, out here?” he asked weakly.

“Life is what you make it,” Rogue answered. “Always has been, always will be,” she said firmly, then sighed. “An' there's always gonna be folk who create bad situations, and then disapprove when normal people, who have to do not-so-nice things in order to survive those situations, actually do them.”

“I... I believe,” Book stated, though his voice shook. “I just... I think I'm on the wrong ship.”

“Ain't no such thing,” Marie reassured him and wrapped his hands up in her own gloved ones, offering a little more comfort as she squeezed his fingers. “God's got a plan for each an' every one of us. Just because we can't see what His plan is, doesn't make it any less true. God don't make mistakes, Shepherd, an' He don't give any person more than they can take.”

“I remember a time when you didn't think so,” Logan quipped from the doorway, a smirk on his face, recalling the early days, back when they'd first met each other, back when they'd met the X-Men and Charles Xavier – a man who had been very much an evolutionist, rather than a believer in intelligent design.

Rogue smiled back brightly. “Well, I learned better,” she told him happily as she went to him and was pleased to be wrapped up in his arms. “An' so did you.”

Logan chuckled softly, but didn't disagree. They had both of them been raised as God-fearing folk, though Logan's memories of his childhood were vague at best. Still, when Marie was humming an old hymn while she cooked, Logan found the words to the song popping up in his brain, and knew he'd known them for a lot longer than he'd known Marie. Knew he'd once sung them when he went to church on Sundays with his family.

“Well, He gave me you,” he reminded her with a smile. “Made my life a whole lot more worth living.”

“Likewise, Sweet-chops,” Marie answered happily, and snuggled into his leather-covered shoulder.

“It's a good lesson, Book,” Logan said, returning his attention to the man with steel-grey hair. “If a lost, innocent little girl who's been kicked out of her home, and a direction-less, crotchety old man who's been kicked out of a bar can find each other in the frozen end of bum-nowhere and go on to be so happy together that the Alliance would probably arrest us for smilin' too much if they knew...”

“You're never in the wrong place,” Rogue finished. “You just have to take a chance, and keep your eyes peeled. You'll find why you're here, or there, or anywhere... eventually.”

“Thank you,” Book said with solemn, but genuine, gratitude.

~oOo~

Unification Day, the girl still hadn't woken up from her Rogue-induced coma, and the ship was headed for a planet with a bar. A bar where Mal would be able to pick up the contact for someone who would be able to give them some work. Paying work, which was the only sort Jayne really got behind.

They – Mal, Zoe, Jayne, Rogue and the Wolverine – settled into a corner booth with drinks and a Chinese Checkers board. Kaylee had offered to watch the girl, and she was just a cheerful, gentle soul that Rogue and the Wolverine had agreed; Kaylee would be an alright sort of person for the girl to wake up to.

“What the hell ever happened to playing _poker_ in pubs?” Logan grumbled around his cigar as Mal made the first move, and Zoe the second. Cigars were hard to come by these days, so he rationed them carefully (not smoking them at all on the ship where the air was recycled and his smoking would effect _everybody_ ) and bought them when he could. More people went with cigarettes or stuffed pipes with peculiar herbs, but the high swill had always been fond of their vices, so even though finding good cigars got tricky sometimes, it was never impossible.

“People didn't have the cash to spare, Sugar,” Marie reminded him as she took her turn before she plucked his cigar out of his mouth and stole some of the smoke from his mouth in a quick kiss before she replaced it, both of them smiling like cats with cream.

A week aboard ship together, and Mal was acclimated to their public displays of affection in the same way he was immune to those moments between his first mate and his pilot, so he didn't say anything.

“I don't mind playing for chores on the ship,” Jayne offered.

They played a while more, focused on the board and their drinks, until pieces started to get far enough across the board that there was a possibility of a piece making the jump from one side to completely the other in one move.

One of the dancing girls (and wasn't that a thing for a rickety pub like this one to have? A girl with most of her body on display, belly-dancing her way around the bar, while other girls all painted and dressed up like the geisha of Japan shuffled around serving drinks) chose that moment to brush up against Mal, and when she'd passed, he moved something to his pocket.

“Your move,” Jayne informed Mal, having taken his turn while that was happening.

Mal skipped one of his pieces over four others.

“Bold move,” Zoe commented.

“I live on the edge,” Mal joked with a boyish smirk on his face, and proceeded to proudly sip from his drink.

Zoe's answering smirk was a good deal more mercenary as she chose one of her pieces and danced it all the way across the board to the opposite side.

“Nice goin' dumbass,” Jayne grumbled at his captain.

“I've given some thought to movin' off that edge,” Mal allowed, as Rogue then did much the same thing as Zoe had, taking advantage of the same move he'd made. “Not an ideal location.”

Even Logan took advantage of it and brought one of his pieces home.

“Maybe somewhere in the middle,” Mal suggested, eyes wide in his face at the devastation wrought to his own cause of winning by that one little move that he'd thought was so good before.

“Toast!” a man on the other side of the room, by the bar, called out. “Toast!” he repeated.

“To all the lucky bastards who died quickly!” Logan called back, raising his glass high.

Rogue drank to that, emptying her glass at the same time as her man.

“ _Shaddup!_ ” he yelled, at twice the volume of his previous two calls.

Quietly, Mal and Zoe raised their drinks in salute to Logan and  _his_ toast, but the rest of the bar had gone silent, even the music cut off, just as the drunk at the bar had loudly requested, and their attention was on him. Even the occupants of the booth were forced to listen to him.

“I, uh, I got words,” the man said.

Rogue and the Wolverine simultaneously raised the same eyebrow in exactly the same manner, which had Jayne doing a double-take.

“Articulate fellow,” Logan commented lowly.

“I'm sayin' this is an a'spicious day,” the man continued, waving his arm – and drink- around.

“An' so refined,” Marie quipped back dryly, keeping her own voice soft as well.

“We all know what day it is,” the drunk declared.

“What day is it?” Jayne asked, confused.

“Wednesday,” Marie and Logan answered together.

“A glorious day, for all the proud members of the allied planets,” the drunk proclaimed, then raised a fist into the air. “Unification Day! The end of the scum-bag In'epen'ents! The dawn of a new galaxy!”

As people around the bar cheered and raised their glasses, Mal clenched his jaw and sat very, very still. Zoe wasn't exactly smiling either.

“Captain?” Zoe asked cautiously when Mal stood.

“I just feel the need for another drink,” Mal told her as he left his chair behind and started to move towards the bar – and the drunk who'd made that slurring toast.

“He's looking for a fight,” Logan noted.

“He'll get one,” Marie replied. _< I miss the days when bars had cages. You always looked so damn smooth in a cage, smokin' an' shirtless.>_

Logan smirked.  _< I miss it too,_ > he agreed.  _< But a regular brawl ought to be fun, and I'll get to see _ you _layin' out these big men. >_

Rogue smiled back sinfully.

“Hey, you gonna drink t' the 'lliance wi' me?” the drunk asked Mal congenially. “Sssix years t'day, the 'lliance sent them Browncoats runnin', piss- pishing in 'eir pants!” he slurred, and chuckled in a friendly way. Then, the drunk's head dropped slightly and rose again, taking in Mal's attire. “You know, your coat issssort of a brownish colour,” he said.

“It was on sale,” Mal replied easily, and took a swig of his drink.

“You di'n't toast,” the drunk noted with a frown. “I'm thinkin' you're one o' them In'epen'ents.”

“And I'm thinkin' you weren't burdened with an over-abundance of schooling,” Mal countered with a fake smile. “So how's about we ignore each other until we both go away?” he suggested, and turned away from the drunk, focusing on his drink.

“The In'epen'ents were a bunch a cowardly, inbred, piss-pots,” the drunk declared – and Zoe got out of her seat. “They shoulda bin killed offa every world spinnin'.”

Mal set his glass down and turned to the drunk. “Say that to my face,” he requested, his expression hard.

“I said that you're a coward, an' you're a piss-pot,” the drunk managed to sneer out. “Now what you gonna do 'bout it?”

Mal quirked up a tiny smile. “Nothin',” he said. “I just wanted you to face me so she could get behind you,” he explained, with a slight nod to Zoe, who was, indeed, behind the man.

Well, until he turned around. Then she was in front of him. For a few seconds. Then the floor was in front of him, after her fist, wrapped around the butt of her gun, had connected with his face and sent him to the ground.

“Drunks are so cute,” Mal quipped lightly, that smile like a little boy with a cookie on his face. The smile dropped to the expression of a kid _caught_ with his hand in the cookie-jar when, all around the bar, the other patrons were getting to their feet. Each one with an unpleasant look on their face, all of them aiming those looks at Mal and Zoe.

“I do believe there is an atmosphere of imminent violence about the place,” Rogue quipped to Logan and Jayne.

“Oh _juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan_ ,” Mal grumbled.

“Jayne?” Zoe called.

“Hell, I didn't fight in no war,” Jayne answered, and grabbed up his drink. “Best of luck though,” he bid them, saluting them with the glass.

Rogue slipped off the Wolverine's lap, flashing a shining white canine in her sinful little smile as she dragged a hand down his jeans as she stood, and swayed her hips lazily as she stepped around the table so that she was more able to take part in the fight.

“Well Sugar?” she asked the Wolverine over her shoulder as she absently clothes-lined a man.

He chuckled, put out his cigar, and tucked it into a pocket – just because it was out didn't mean it was spent, he'd get a few more hours from that one yet before it had to be tossed out. Then he got up too.

The first person he met (apart from Rogue) he caught by the arm and flipped them onto their back, winding them and possibly denting their skull as they crashed into the floor.

“Your ass made of cookie-dough Cobb?” Logan asked Jayne with a smirk. “Or are you going to wale in and join the fun?”

Jayne scowled a moment at the insult, swore under his breath, and hauled his rear out of the booth to join the fight as well, grabbing a barstool as he waded in.

The Wolverine quickly noticed something about the way those he was there with fought. Rogue he knew, but the other three... apart from Jayne, it was like they didn't have any sense of how to fight, and Jayne was using a barstool, which begged the question of what he'd be like without that particular leveller.

Mal hit people willy-nilly, not even really bothering if they were down properly or not before he moved on. Zoe was better, she hit with purpose, but she still didn't hit them so that they stayed down properly.

Hell, if it weren't for him and Rogue being in the fight as well, Mal would have already been picked up and thrown through the window.

_< These folks need lessons in how to fight,>_ Logan told Marie as he tossed some other drunk out the window, head-first and at such an angle as to make sure he landed on it.

_< Soon as the girl wakes up and we've got time, we'll get everybody on the ship in on lessons, provided they don't evict us because of the girl,>_ Marie promised – yes, Rogue knew the girl's real name, but for the girl's sake, she didn't even say it in their thoughts. Always referring to her only as 'the girl', or by the name Logan had volunteered for her: Jean.

_< Deal,>_ Logan agreed, and slammed his elbow into the face of another patron of the bar.

“Hey, them ain't kosher-ised rules!” Jayne objected when, the fight having moved out of the bar, the drunk who'd sort-of started the whole thing pulled a gun on them. Him and two of his buddies, who were the only ones still standing who weren't the girls who worked in the bar.

“I'm thinkin'... someone needs to put you down, dog,” the drunk said, a nice knock on his head showing up clear in his total lack of hair as he pointed his gun, braced with both hands and still swaying a bit, at Mal. “What do you think?”

“I'm thinkin' you couldn't shoot straight to save yourself right now,” Logan offered with a smirk.

“An' I'm thinking those guns are all probably gummed up,” Rogue added with a very satisfied smile. “If y'all even remembered to load 'em this mornin'.”

Mal grabbed his radio out of his pocket as the three guys with guns all frowned and checked their weapons.

“Wash, a pick-up, please,” he requested.

Wash brought  _Serenity_ around just as the three with the guns shot themselves, with a little help from Rogue manipulating their weapons as they checked them over. Not fatally of course, that would draw too much attention. But they certainly all screamed in pain like little girls.

Kaylee came running down to meet them as they boarded, closing the cargo-bay doors behind them, her brown eyes wide.

“She's awake,” she told Rogue and Logan at once.

The pair turned to each other, neither able to even think at each other as they just took in that information and tried to process it.

“I'll go,” Logan said after a moment. _< She's already nervy around you.>_

Marie nodded in agreement. “Thanks Hun,” she answered.  _< Besides, you got a way of comforting scared and unstable young women,>_ Rogue added with a slightly sly, knowing look.

_< You're the only one for me,>_ he reminded her fondly. With that, Logan headed off, to where he'd stashed the girl.

At the same time, Rogue turned to Kaylee as they all started moving towards the bridge. “Now, I got a present for ya,” she informed the younger girl with a bright smile, and with a flourish she produced three wallets from her pockets, each one full of cash. Of course, she kept five back for herself and Logan. “So you can buy all the shiny new parts you want next time we go somewhere you can buy 'em.”

Kaylee happily tucked the wallets into her cover-alls.

Mal blinked. “Now why didn't I think of that?” he asked softly, clearly asking himself that question rather than any of the other people present.

“So, there was a terrible brawl?” Kaylee asked with a bright smile as they finally reached the bridge.

“Strangely enough, there was,” Zoe agreed.

“Are you getting my wife in trouble?” Wash demanded, reaching for Zoe, though he remained in his chair – he was still flying the ship, though that second the activity didn't have his full attention. Thankfully, it was a job that was getting by with only half at the moment.

“I didn't start it!” Mal objected innocently. “I just wanted a quiet drink!”

“Funny, Sir, how you always manage to find a 'quiet drink' in an Alliance-friendly bar on U-day,” Zoe quipped.

“Now that's just a sign of the tragic onset of space-dementia,” Mal decided with a pout. “Bein' all paranoid and crotchety.”

“Did we at least make the contact?” Wash implored.

Mal smiled, and pulled a little slip of paper out of his inside jacket pocket. “Ladies and menfolk, we have ourselves a job,” he declared proudly as Zoe took the paper, and she was smiling too. “Take us out of world Wash,” the captain instructed happily. “Got us some crime to be done.”


	6. Chapter 6

Logan knocked on the door, more to announce his presence than to ask permission, and considering the girl was a telepath, he knew that it was a completely superficial gesture. He let himself in without waiting for permission, and found the girl curled up in one corner of the room, hands over her ears and clutching at her hair. Quietly, he closed the door behind him and moved slowly towards her.

“Hey Kid,” he said softly.

She didn't shy away from him any more than she was already, curled up into a defensive ball as she was, so Logan gathered her up in his arms and settled them both onto the bed.

“Nightmares?” he guessed. “Memories? Or is it just too loud?”

“Not relevant,” she answered softly.

“It's causing you some kind of pain,” Logan countered. “That makes it relevant.”

“Quantify,” the girl requested. “It is relevant to the girl, not to you.”

“I want to help you,” Logan said, “an' so does my girl, if you'll let us.”

“The girl cannot be helped,” she informed him.

Logan smirked. “Well, not the way your brother intended,” he conceded. “But my girl already managed to neutralise all your triggers while you were sleeping.”

The girl snapped her head up, eyes wide, and stared at him in shock.

“She can help you learn how to filter out all the voices too,” Logan offered softly. “She's probably the only person alive who knows exactly what that feels like, and she _can_ help you, if you'll just let her.”

“Some things can't be fixed,” the girl informed him darkly.

“No,” Logan agreed. “No, some things can't,” he admitted. “But just because your brain doesn't work the way it used to, that doesn't mean it's _broken_ either, doesn't mean _you're_ broken.”

_< Can I come in?>_ Rogue asked from beyond the door.

“ _Ging jin_ ,” River said softly.

Rogue opened the door and stepped through, closing it behind her as Logan had done. Neither one of them had ever cared to learn Mandarin as it was used by people throughout the universe these days, despite that, they'd picked up a good-sized bit. Logan, because he'd just always been a fast learner, and Marie because of her mutation – her understanding was much more comprehensive. They didn't  _use_ the language, but they understood it well enough.

“Kept the girl hidden,” the girl said softly. “Knows her name, but doesn't tell.”

“No,” Marie agreed. “I kept it safe, away from people who would speak it without thinking an' get you found by the people who took your dancin' shoes away. They wouldn't mean to, but speakin' your name could see you found that much faster.”

“Wants to change her face,” River persisted.

“When they can't find someone who answers to your name, they'll ask for someone who has your face,” Rogue pointed out. “Come on Honey, you're a genius, you understand this is logical.”

River nodded silently, though she clearly wasn't entirely thrilled with this course of action.

“If you don't like the name Jean, you can pick a different one,” Logan offered, “an' we're not gonna change your face in any way you really don't like. I promise.”

Still silent, the girl nodded once more in acceptance and understanding.

Rogue and Logan smiled back at her.

“I'll start with the haircut, you start with the lessons,” Logan suggested.

“The girl has always had long hair,” she stated.

“Well, Logan won't make it any shorter than your chin, okay? An' if you don't like it, hair always grows back eventually,” Rogue replied.

“Satisfactory,” the girl decided. “What will be the first step in the new training?”

“You got to focus on just one mind – yours. Ignore all the other voices as you find the centre of yourself. Imagine the centre of your mind as somewhere else. A beach, a forest, your bedroom, any place you can feel comfortable, at peace, and secure. Somewhere that you can be without the rest of the voices pressing on you. You need somewhere that you can push all those voices so that you're not hearing them...”

~oOo~

When the door opened, and there was a face _right there_ , Rogue and the Wolverine both lashed out without thinking, each one catching their fist on one of his cheekbones.

“Sorry,” Rogue said as they stepped through the door. “He looks like a bastard that we used to know.”

“It's fine,” said the grandfatherly gentleman from behind his desk with a chuckle. Adelai Niska certainly didn't look like a dangerous criminal. “I have told you Crow, that one day your habit would get you into trouble.”

The large blonde, Crow, could only groan in answer as involuntary tears of pain streamed down his face. Still, he managed to haul himself to his feet.

“Now, Malcolm Reynolds is which?” the elderly gentleman asked.

“I'm Captain Reynolds,” Mal answered, stepping up. “This is my first mate, Zoe, gun-hand Jayne, medic Logan, and our public relations officer, Rogue.”

“Public relations?” repeated the old man as he raised one thin eyebrow further up his bald head in curiosity.

Rogue smiled. “Captain has a bad habit of stickin' his foot in it when he's tryin' to negotiate work,” she explained. “Not so good at being polite.”

“I do the job,” Mal said. “Not so good at gabbin' the fine details.”

“Yes,” Niska agreed with a dangerously pleased expression. “Malcolm Reynolds gets the job done is the talk.”

“We've thankfully been able to avoid getting too many jobs where getting pinched was issue enough that we couldn't get the job done,” Rogue agreed pleasantly. “An' if for some reason the job doesn't get done, then our captain is very honest about accepting that he won't get paid for it.”

_< The job doesn't always get done, but he gets paid when it does, and returns any coin if it doesn't. All nice and level,>_ Rogue projected softly, gently, not a clear thought invading the man's head, but an insinuated understanding.

Niska nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “Still... you know what is reputation? Is people talking. Is  _gossip_ . I also have reputation, and not so pleasant. I think you know?” he enquired. “Crow!” he called.

The blonde pulled open a door that had been behind Niska's desk, revealing a dead man hung up by his ankles.

“Now for you, my reputation is not from gossip. You see this man, eh, he does not do the job,” Niska enlightened. “I show what I do to him, and now my reputation is _fact_. Is _solid_. You do job for me, and _your_ reputation is solid. No more gossip,” he said pleasantly.

“Right,” Mal agreed tightly.

“Ooh, you do not like I kill this man?” Niska suggested.

“I think you got him strung up wrong,” the Wolverine corrected. “An' the captain just had a good lunch that's threatening to revisit him 'cause of the smell.”

“Strung up wrong?” Niska repeated, surprised.

“Two butcher's hooks through his shoulders,” Rogue offered clinically.

“Yeah,” Logan agreed. “Here, and here,” he added, indicating the positions for the hooks on himself, jabbing his finger into the softer flesh just between and below the shoulder joint and the collarbone on each side. “Good sized hooks, they'd go right through. Meat's always more tender if it can hang in the direction the body was built to stand in.”

“That's just all sorts of creepifyin',” Jayne muttered lowly.

“Alright Hun,” Rogue said as she settled down onto Adelai Niska's desk, a smile on her face. “We all know your reputation now, so let's talk about what we can do for you, to prove ours. But you gotta know, we'd have hated to disappoint you even without seein' what you do to the folks who don't come through. After all, our captain, he likes to get his jobs done and get paid.”

Niska answered Rogue with a smile and settled more comfortably into his chair.

“Yes, and now we get to the matter of discussing the job. It is very exciting. A train!” Niska declared. “It has something I need. Have you... robbed a train before?”

Rogue shook her head prettily. “I'm afraid it's somethin' we ain't ever done before, which means the likelihood of the job going bad, or us getting pinched, goes up,” she said apologetically, and then pouted in thought. “We should practice on a couple of different trains, before we do a train job for you. We'd really hate for you to not get your cargo because we didn't know the best way to rob a train.”

_< Do you have anything else? We're good at smuggling, and salvage operations.>_

Niska frowned. “I do not like that you say you cannot do this job, but I like that you are honest about it. It seems I shall have to contract someone else about what I need from the train. Ah, but I cannot let you go without giving you work when you came all this way. Ah! I know! I have a cargo, buyer is waiting for delivery. You can transport this for me, without law becoming involved?”

Rogue smiled. “We're very good at that,” she agreed.

“Destination is on Persephone, buyer is called Atherton Wing,” Niska explained. “Must be very discrete,” he warned them solemnly.

Rogue smiled. “We're good at discrete,” she promised.

“Mr Wing has good credit with me,” Niska informed them happily. “Pays me well for his goods, and always gives good price to those making the delivery. Crow, take them to Mr Wing's cargo!”

~oOo~

Logan did his best not to sneeze as he helped load the crate onto the ship. Niska, for all of his exceedingly un-lovely reputation, had his well-manicured fingers in only a few metaphorical pies: murder, extortion, robbery, and drugs. Only one of those really fit into a crate that would be then shipped to a buyer. Logan had never cared much for the smell of drugs (coffee, booze and tobacco completely aside), and apart from those previously mentioned already, he also didn't much care for the effects of drugs.

Then again, having as many nightmares of labs as he did, with as many awful experiences of “anaesthetic” as he had, and various other things that had been designed to “keep him under control”... yeah, he wasn't keen on drugs. He could understand the use for certain sorts. Drugs designed specifically to cure a disease, or prevent it before it became an issue. Vaccines. Wonderful things they were, even if the X-gene was something that was also being “vaccinated” these days. On the other hand, maybe if those vaccines hadn't been created, they wouldn't have had that over-population problem back on Earth, and would still be there now.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

But right now, their current delivery was irritating his nose.

He was glad when Jayne closed up the hidden compartment, the cargo neatly hidden away out of sight, and away from the vents, so that the smell wasn't being incorporated into the regularly-recycled air.

And that crate was just full of some flavour of tranquilizer. What could a man moneyed enough to _afford_ all these drugs actually _want_ them for? The answers weren't any that Logan particularly cared for.

Rogue didn't like any of the ideas she was coming up with to answer that question with either. But it was still work, and it was money, and no one else on the crew (except for Logan) would object to the work at this point. Then again, for them to object to the work would see them strung up by their toes and bled dry, after they'd been soundly tortured for likely days.

Niska was that sort of man.

“I don't suppose you're making this delivery to a place where I can get some respectable clients?” Inara asked Mal softly once they were in the Black again.

“Isn't that something of a contradiction?” Mal returned with a smirk.

“Don't start,” Inara ordered him shortly.

Mal bowed his head in acknowledgement. “We're goin' to Persephone, actually,” he said, finally answering her question. “Hopefully we'll be able to avoid Badger while we're there giving Mister Wing his regular delivery from Niska.”

“Wing?” Inara repeated, curious. “Not... not _Atherton_ Wing?”

Mal halted, concern now written across his face. “How would you know a thing like that?” he asked.

Inara paled a little. “He's one of my clients. Or maybe, 'was', now,” she decided a little weakly. If her client regularly dealt with a man Mal wanted to keep her hid from for her own safety, then... she wasn't sure she wanted anything to do with Atherton Wing ever again. As it was, he'd been trying to get her to be his personal Companion for a while, and didn't like it when she dodged answering his request, but she liked the variety that came with travelling the 'verse with _Serenity_.

Rogue quietly poured a glass of something alcoholic that had been in the cupboard, and pressed the vessel into Inara's hand, then went to find her man. They'd both need some comfort too, after having to handle the sorts of drugs that had long been used to subdue humans that were being kept as test subjects in labs.

If Mal was going to take any more jobs like that, then they'd be getting off the ship, taking the girl with them of course, a bit sooner than they had originally anticipated.


End file.
